


rosaceae

by lilaliacs



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Magical Realism, Possession, Slow Burn, blue sargent!hyuck, but its chill!!, heavily inspired by trc, nymph!renjun, theres a kitten named karen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 06:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17802401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaliacs/pseuds/lilaliacs
Summary: Getting down to it, it's all Donghyuck's grandmother's fault.(In which Donghyuck just wants to be a normal teenager, but he has to deal with kittens and magic and leafy possession.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i've been sitting on this idea for months and now!! she is finally here in all her confusing glory!!
> 
> big thanks to varsha who let me vent all of this to her in the very beginning <3
> 
> when i say heavily inspired by trc i mean vibe-wise, so you definitely don't need to know the series for this fic, plot wise it has nothing to do with it. ^^
> 
> have fun xX

Donghyuck hates animals. 

It's not so much that an animal has ever done anything to him, nor does he find them repellant or ugly. In fact, he can admit that Jaemin's pet bunny is quite cute, sometimes. 

Donghyuck's strong dislike of all animal life more stems from a deep personal grudge. It doesn't even have anything to do with the animals perse, really. 

Getting down to it, it's all Donghyuck's grandmother's fault. 

If it wasn't for her, and what Donghyuck can only assume were still leftover hormones going crazy from puberty when she had been barely seventeen, maybe Donghyuck would have a healthy kind of adoration for animals. Maybe he wouldn't have made it a principle to not ever coo at pictures of puppies, or he wouldn't pride himself in not having a favourite animal, or never visiting the clinic his sister volunteers at. 

Maybe, if it hadn't been for his grandmother getting herself pregnant, Donghyuck could have just walked to school on this Tuesday morning. He could have heard the pained whine from the plum tree on Lee Jeno's front lawn and could have gotten worried, like a normal person. He could have checked, only to see a tiny kitten, its fur grey, nearly black, sitting at a very high juncture in the tree, screaming for help. He could have climbed up, help the kitten down and go about his way. Maybe he would have arrived to his Chemistry class a little late, but he's sure Miss Son would excuse it, if he told her about the adorable little feline life he's saved. 

As it is, he is left to stare up at the tiny furry menace with what he hopes is an accusing glare. 

All he wants is to turn away and hurry on to school, so he can arrive to Chemistry class like he always did, a comfortable few minutes before the final bell. 

The first time he attempted to walk away though, the kitten had released a whine so high pitched it nearly hurt in his ears. It was only the raging annoyance at that, Donghyuck tells himself, that kept him from leaving, and not the way the noise tugged at his heart strings. 

“What do you want from me, you little monster?” Donghyuck hisses up at the tree. He gets another long whine back and sighs. He expected nothing else, of course not, not after all these years, but sometimes he still catches himself hoping. 

“Fine, fine. Shut up already.” He murmurs, as he sets his backpack down and reaches for the first branch of the tree. 

It's easy, getting up, and soon enough, he can wrap a hand around the kitten and hoist it from where it had been stuck. He stares at it for a second, fitting motionlessly in his hand, before he reaches back and places it in the hood of his sweatshirt for lack of better options. 

To an outsider, the action might have looked ginger, careful, maybe even loving. Donghyuck knows it isn’t. He's just being practical. He needs both his hands to get down from the tree, after all. 

As soon as his feet are on the ground, he huffs. “See, that wasn't so hard, was it?” 

His hood moves as if the kitten is struggling to get out. Donghyuck can understand, it's a very old sweatshirt, the fabric kind of coarse in places from how much Donghyuck has been wearing it over the years. There's probably better places to be. 

“Sorry for that.” He mumbles as he lifts the little ball of fur back out and onto the ground. Internally, he scolds himself to finally stop talking to it. It's not going to answer, no matter how much he wants it to. He isn't his sister. 

He expects the kitten to run off into the bushes, get itself stuck in another tree for another unsuspecting teenager to find and rescue. Maybe that one will be friendlier, with a softer sweatshirt. 

It doesn't though, just sits there and looks up at Donghyuck nearly expectantly. 

“What?” He hisses, to no avail. Of course not. 

The little thing looks awfully small, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. In fact, Donghyuck thinks one of the pebbles in Lee Jeno’s front lawn might be bigger than this kitten. 

He notes this, not in awe, not with any kind of adoration or wonder. It’s a completely neutral, objective realization, just as the one that comes next: He has to run, if he wants to make it to Chemistry on time. 

“Well, you're welcome.” He rushes, Saerom’s voice echoing in his head that this cat is a _baby_ and needs to learn _manners_. Once, when they had still been in elementary school, Saerom had ratted him out to their mother because a pigeon had apparently cursed at her and it was _absolutely Hyuckie's fault, mom, I saw him talk to it!_

He's so caught up in the memory of how he yelled at his sister that the pigeon wouldn't listen to him, even if he tried, that he nearly misses the high pitched whine as he steps around the kitten. Nearly. 

He halts, only for the kitten to make another pitiful sound. It tugs at his heartstrings, again, and Donghyuck can't help but groan. He hates animals. He doesn't do this. He needs to get to Chemistry. Saerom won't let him hear the end of this. 

He bends down, picks the kitten back up and deposits it back into his hood, before he sprints in the direction of the school gates. 

*** 

The little monster, miraculously, fell asleep on the way to his chemistry classroom, and it stays motionless in Donghyuck's sweatshirt until Miss Son is finished giving them her usual mountain of homework. If Jeon Heejin, sitting behind him with a clear view of the feline in his hood, has anything to say about it, he doesn't give her the chance to do so. He's out of his seat and the room before half the class is even packed up. 

Jaemin is waiting for him outside, leaning against the opposite wall and his smile only widens when he sees Donghyuck's knitted eyebrows. 

“Oh, someone is having a _splendid_ morning.” He chirps. “And who could judge you? First period Chemistry on Mondays has to be an absolute _joy_ \--” 

“Zip it.” Donghyuck snaps. 

Right on time, just as Donghyuck is about to grab Jaemin's arm and hurl him outside into the quad for the free period they have together next, there's a loud, demanding whine from his hoodie. 

Jaemin stays rooted in place. “Did your hoodie just meow?” 

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “I'm being haunted by a demon. Give me your chocolate milk and maybe I'll introduce you.” 

Jaemin would never pass this opportunity up, even if he might know it’s not a _real_ demon. 

And sure enough, ten minutes later Donghyuck is leaning against the trunk of the oak tree in the quad, sipping Jaemin's chocolate milk while his best friend coos about the tiny nightmare in his hands. 

“Oh, she's so _small_.” He whispers in astonishment, to which Donghyuck only gives a non-committal hum. “Does she have a name?” 

Donghyuck narrows his eyes at him. “She didn't tell me, you know?” He replies, maybe a little sharper than necessary. 

“You should ask Rom, then.” Jaemin shrugs, not even caring for the icy look Donghyuck is throwing him. 

“Rom will never know about this.” Donghyuck declares with finality, and that, eventually, gets Jaemin’s attention. 

“Aren’t you going to take her home?” 

Donghyuck scoffs. “And listen to my whole family berating me about it and trying to mediate between me and this good-for-nothing furball? No, thank you.” 

Jaemin gasps and covers the kittens ears, appalled. “ _You're_ a good-for-nothing furball.” 

“She can understand me just as little as she can understand you.” Donghyuck replies with another roll of his eye. “Don’t worry.” 

Jaemin goes back to scratching behind the kittens ears. The little thing is seemingly having a grandiose time, even though it's been hours since Donghyuck found her and she didn't have anything to eat or drink. Don't babies constantly need to eat or sleep? Surely, they can't sustain off pets alone. 

Not that Donghyuck cares. Not that he's in any way worried. 

He opens his backpack and reaches for his waterbottle. 

“Man, I wish she could understand me.” Jaemin mutters, a soft smile on his face as the kitten purrs in his lap. “Saerom is so adamant about not being able to teach me, but I'm sure there's a way.” 

A bitter type of smile steals itself onto Donghyuck's face, one reserved specifically for this conversation, this subject. 

“Oh, there is. Just get yourself a nice nymph and you can gossip with every stray in the world.” He clicks his tongue. “Or, you know, you can not.” 

Jaemin twists his mouth in that particular pitiful way that he reserves specifically for this conversation, this subject. 

“Sorry.” He mumbles, but Donghyuck pays him no mind, just pours a little bit of water into the cap of his bottle and places it on the ground near the kitten. She happily taps over to it and drinks. 

“I'm sure there's a way.” Jaemin picks the conversation back up again. Donghyuck wishes he would just drop it. “And then she can teach you too, you know?” 

Donghyuck is sure that Jaemin is wrong, but he just shrugs nonchalantly. He wants this conversation to be over. 

It's not like he hasn't thought about the possibility for years, like he's lost night over night of sleep to fantasizing about being able to do what his siblings can do, what his father can do. It's not like he got up each morning, having to accept that he can't, won't ever be able to, and live with it. 

If it wasn't for his grandmother, he would have maybe lost sleep over normal things, like exams or cute boys or video games. 

If it wasn’t for his family he maybe would be getting away with doing just that. 

But every family has stories. They range from heartwarming to traumatising, told in loud voices to hushed whispers, are either something to be proud of or something to keep secret. 

Most of Donghyuck’s family’s stories fall in between and most of them are about his grandmother. 

Donghyuck’s grandmother had been a cheerful, impish kind of woman, so Donghyuck's father told him when he was little. 

Taeyong, the only one of the Lee siblings that actually remembers their grandmother, swears that he'd never seen her without a wide smile on her face and a glint in her eyes that spoke of something more, something not everyone could understand. 

Donghyuck thinks that it was maybe that glint that caused his grandmother to change the course of her entire ancestry forever, back when she was seventeen. 

He only knows the version his father would tell, highly dramatised and perfected by his grandmother from years of telling it, and by his father from years of listening. 

“Your Nan,” His father would say, Donghyuck on his lap, Saerom leaning into him and Taeyong on the ground in front of the couch, “Had a special knack for finding special places.

“One day, when she was seventeen--” 

_”That is so old.”_ Saerom whispered to Donghyuck, and he giggled. 

“When she was seventeen,” Their father repeated, a little louder, and they stifled their laughter. “She found the most special place of all, not far from here, actually. It's a little clearing, by the creek, in the middle of the woods. There's old legends from the founding fathers of this town, that this very clearing was a magical place, one for fairytales, not meant for human eyes.” 

It was Donghyuck this time, who interrupted him. “But Granny found it!” He protested. 

Taeyong laughed, this time. “Just listen to the story, Duckie.” He instructed. 

Donghyuck stuck his tongue out of him. His siblings had heard the story before, but this was the first time Donghyuck got to hear it too. (The second, actually. He fell asleep on his father's lap the first time, but he was determined to stay awake for this one. He was five years old, he was a big boy, too big to not know their family's big secret.) 

“Like I said, she had a special knack for finding things, and this clearing was one of them. She found it, despite the fact that she shouldn't have been able to, and that impressed the creatures already living there.” 

“What kind of creatures?” Donghyuck asked, because he couldn't hold his tongue.

“ _I_ think there was unicorns.” Saerom replied instead of their father. “But dad always says he doesn't know.” 

“I don't.” Their father laughed. “Your grandma never told me what exactly she found living there. She only ever talked about one creature that she met.” 

“This is the best part.” Taeyong whispered under his breath and upon his brother's words, Donghyuck sat up straighter. 

Even Taeyong, after all the times he'd heard the story, seemed excited to hear it again. Donghyuck didn't miss the blossoms floating the ground from where Taeyong's hands were gripping onto his knees. 

“On her first day to the clearing she met someone, and they talked and talked, for hours. She didn't know what they were, exactly, but she did draw them hundreds of times. I'll show you later.” 

Donghyuck has seen the pictures countless times by now. Sketchbooks with pages over pages full of the same face, of petals, of detailed sketches of something that might have been the bark of a tree, might have been locks of hair, of eyes that seem to be the deepest sea and the sky above it at the same time. 

His grandmother had been quite the artist. 

“They fell in love.” Is what his father said next, and Donghyuck turned to him with wide eyes. Love is a big word when you're five years old, one he wouldn’t think about for a very long time.

(But it's still a big word when you're eleven and doodle your initials next to the one of your seatmate instead of doing homework. 

It's a big word when you're fifteen and realize what exactly it means that the same seatmate laughs and your stomach feels like it's on fire, even though it's a boy and not a girl. 

It continues to be a big word when you're eighteen and he's not your seatmate anymore but you do share a few classes and you try not to admit to your prying best friend that you look forward to them each week.) 

“Now, when your grandmother told me this for the first time I was about your age, Duckie, and I didn't really know what to think about this. You don't have to, either, but know that when your grandmother talked about this person, it was with warmth and with sunshine and everything that's alive.” 

Donghyuck nodded, as if he understood. He didn't of course, not until the year he turned fifteen, his stomach up in flames. 

“Did that person have a name, dad?” He asked. 

His father smiled. “I used to ask her that. She would say that they did, but it wasn't one that mattered to the humans.” 

“Did it matter to Granny?” 

It looked like his father had to think about this for a second. “I suppose it did.” He nodded then. “I suppose it did.” 

“Tell the rest of the story, dad!” Saerom whined next to them. 

“Of course.” He nodded. “Your Grandmother spent an entire summer going back to the clearing every day, talking to her love, listening to them. Eventually, the clearing itself granted your grandmother with a very special gift. It wasn't meant for humans, just as the clearing itself, but somehow it deemed her worthy of it.

“Sometimes, she would say that she wasn't sure whether it was really the clearing that gave her the gift, or if it was that person. Sometimes, she would say that she didn't think there was a difference. In any way, she was sure it was a goodbye.” 

“A goodbye?” Donghyuck repeated. 

“Yes, Duckie. She didn't ever find the clearing again after that summer.” 

Donghyuck frowned. “That's sad.” 

“She didn't think so. She missed her love, every day, until she left us. But they never truly left her, you know?” 

“Because of the gift?” 

“Exactly.” 

“Also because she had dad!” Taeyong intersected. 

“That, too.” Their father laughed. “I was quite the whirlwind, she couldn't have had time for missing anything while caring for me on her own.” He thought for a moment. “The gift couldn’t have helped.” 

The gift, Donghyuck had already known of back then. It was in the way Saerom convinced their neighbour’s dog to stop barking sometimes, in the blossoms on the couch after Taeyong took a nap on it, in the kitchen’s windowsill that was rich with flowers and herbs even in the dead of winter when frost painted the glass. 

Donghyuck has known about the gift ever since he could understand it, and ever since then, he’d waited. Throughout his childhood, he had been attentive to the things around him, every pebble and every leaf could have been the one thing to look for when he didn’t know what exactly he was supposed to expect. 

No pebble and no leaf had ever shown him something beyond its most basic existence, and while he never stopped waiting, he did give up hope. 

Many of his family’s stories are about his grandmother. Some will be about his siblings. None will ever be about him, he decided when he was about nine, none of the ones that mattered anyway, not if he could help it. 

If the gift didn’t want him, he doesn’t want the gift, doesn’t want the magic, doesn’t want the glint his grandmother had. 

Jaemin’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. It’s quiet in the way it always is when Jaemin wants him to forget that he’s mad at him. 

“You should give her a name though.” 

Donghyuck is tired of being mad at Jaemin for never losing hope in Donghyuck’s supernatural lineage, so he sighs. “Fine.” 

He picks up the kitten from where she is cleaning up the last drops of water from his bottle cap and holds her close to his face. 

“I will call you… Karen.” 

Jaemin makes a noise of protest. “That’s no name for a baby kitten.” 

“Once, Saerom met a cat and he told her his name was Gunther. You don’t make the rules here, dude.” 

Jaemin does seem like he wants to keep protesting, but he also doesn’t want to risk the conversational lifeline Donghyuck threw him, so he refrains to changing the subject. 

“Is our movie night for the weekend still on?” 

Donghyuck likes to discuss normal things with Jaemin. It makes him forget about how he should worry about what to do with Karen, about how Saerom would be the obvious choice to ask for help in anything to do with animals and about how for a moment he played with the thought to ask Taeyong if trees had names too and if one ever told him theirs. 

Donghyuck has made a principle out of pretending the gift doesn’t exist for as much of his life as he can. That includes not calling his brother at college specifically to ask about said gift. It also includes dropping the subject of the gift in favour to plan a movie night with Jaemin, something that entirely normal gift-less teenagers do. 

An entirely normal gift-less teenager is what Donghyuck is and what he would love to stay. 

Karen meows softly as he and Jaemin start bickering about movie choices. 

*** 

“I really don’t know how you did it.” Jaemin muses as Karen tries to climb up his arm. It seems like her objective is a perch on top of his head. “Your sister literally has a magic connection to all animal life, you live under the same roof and you still managed to keep your new friend a secret from her all week.” 

“She’s not my friend.” Donghyuck retorts as he detaches Karen’s tiny claws from the fabric of Jaemin’s sweatshirt and sets her down on his friend’s shoulder for better access. She nips at his finger in something that might be affection, might be attempted murder, before he can pull his hand away. 

“Point still stands.” Jaemin winces as Karen sinks her claws into the skin of his neck. 

“Saerom is busy at the clinic most days of the week. Also I take the little monster to school with me.” Donghyuck explains. 

Infact, the day before had been a close call. He came home from school a little after Saerom’s shift ended and had to hide Karen from his sister’s view behind his back as she told him about a lady that had come in with her pet frog. Miraculously, the kitten stayed silent. 

With another wince, Jaemin grabs Karen on his shoulder and sets her back down on his lap. She protests with a soft mewl, but resorts to curling in on herself when Jaemin starts running a finger over her tiny forehead. 

“So what’s the plan?” Jaemin asks. 

“Watching as much of Sharknado as we can emotionally take and then switching to The Breakfast Club?” Donghyuck recounts the setlist for their movie night. 

Jaemin blinks at him for a moment, incredulous. 

“I meant with Karen, but… Yeah, okay, sure.” 

With a small sigh, Donghyuck gets up from the couch to retrieve the remote from one of their bookshelves. 

“I mean, she has to belong to someone.” He vaguely gives back. 

Jaemin nods, thoughtful. “Where did you say you found her again?” 

Donghyuck can’t surpress a small wince. “I didn’t say.” He admits. 

“So?” 

“She sat in the tree in front of Lee Jeno’s house.” Donghyuck mumbles quickly, but Jaemin still catches it. 

“You stole Lee Jeno’s cat?!” He exclaims. “Hyuck! That’s no way to go about wooing the love of your life!” 

Donghyuck groans and reaches for a pillow to throw at Jaemin but thinks better of it when Karen releases a small purr on Jaemin’s lap. 

“This has nothing to do with the fact that it was _Jeno’s_ tree. She wouldn’t let me leave.” He tries to defend himself. 

Jaemin is quiet for a long moment, before a tiny smile makes its way onto his face. 

“Well, you know what that means.” 

“No, I don’t.” Donghyuck vehemently shakes his head. “Don’t tell me what it means.” 

“You’ll have to talk to him, Donghyuck! Ask him if he’s perchance missing a kitten!” 

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“It’s the logical thing to do.” Jaemin insists. That cursed smile was still on his face. “The fact that it forces you to talk to the boy you’ve been pining over for years is just a bonus.” 

“I never _pined_.” Donghyuck protests, when he knows just as well as Jaemin that that is exactly what he’s been doing throughout most of middle school and all of high school. 

He also knows just as well as Jaemin does that his best friend is right, it _is_ the logical thing to do. 

Donghyuck sends a withering glare to Karen. The kitten remains ignorant to it, continuing to purr quietly, eyes closed in contentment. 

He releases another world weary sigh and clicks play on Sharknado 1. 

*** 

Black cats are bad luck. 

When Donghyuck read that in a book he found in their tiny elementary school library, one with stories about witches and ghosts, he had promptly told Saerom about it. She’d thrown a pillow into his face and berated him for animal prejudice. 

Karen’s fur isn’t really black, it’s a deep nearly steely gray, but Donghyuck is still convinced that the kitten means nothing but bad luck. 

They’re halfway into the second trash-movie of the night, already showing signs of weakness and basically ready to let John Hughes save them from another terrible CGI shark being slaughtered on screen (Saerom would have went nuts, had she not been out on the vet clinic’s night shift), when the doorbell rings. 

“Did you order food?” Donghyuck asks wearily, eyeing the mountains of snacks on the coffee table that they would never be able to eat in one sitting. 

To his surprise, Jaemin shakes his head. 

“Maybe we’re going to get murdered!” He chirps with a wide grin. 

Donghyuck looks back to the TV screen. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that.” 

“Me neither. I’ll go check!” 

Jaemin jumps up from the couch and only a few moments Donghyuck can hear the front door opening. 

He has caged Karen between his hands on his lap, in an irrational fear that the kitten will zoom through the open door and get herself stupidly stuck in a tree once again, and he’s still fighting to keep the tiny creature still when he hears the voices from the front door waft over. 

“Oh! Are you looking for your cat?” That’s Jaemin. 

“Not really. But I might as well be.” Donghyuck can’t quite place the voice. Or rather, he can, but it’s an absurd placement. 

“... I don’t know what that means.” He hears Jaemin reply. 

“You don’t live here.” The other voice throws in, completely disregarding Jaemin’s confusion. It’s eerie, how familiar it sounds, yet Donghyuck can’t imagine why he would be hearing it, at this point of the night, in front of his own house, talking to his best friend. Even in other situations in life he only hears it in passing, sometimes, if he’s being very pathetic, in his dreams. Never like this. 

“Yeah, no, I don’t, Hyuck is still in the living room. Do you maybe want to come i— Oh, okay, you’re coming in, yeah that’s chill.” 

There’s shuffling in the hallway, then the door opens back up. 

_Oh,_ Donghyuck thinks. _This person who sounds an awful lot like Lee Jeno is coming into my living room._

The door is open. 

“Lee Donghyuck.” Lee Jeno says. 

_Oh,Lee Jeno is standing in my living room._

What he says is: “You know my name?” 

Jeno rolls his eyes. Donghyuck doesn’t think he’s ever seen him do that, he files it away as a success, as very minimal progress. For what, he doesn’t quite know. 

“Of course I know your name, I—“ Jeno’s voice comes out with way more bite than Donghyuck has ever heard it have. He thinks the way Jeno’s eyebrows crease is really cute. “Does he not know your name!?” 

Donghyuck has no idea what that means, but he’s not about to question anything about this situation. 

Karen meows loudly and Jeno’s eyes narrow in on her. 

“Oh, yeah, what a _great_ help you were.” He says to her, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Donghyuck also doesn’t know what that means, but he lifts Karen up a little bit and asks: “Is she yours?” 

Jeno’s eyebrows furrow that much more. “She doesn’t _belong_ to anyone.” He all but hisses.

It distinctly reminds Donghyuck of something Saerom would rant about at the dinner table. The fact that his sister would have something to bond with Jeno over nearly makes him smile. 

“Donghyuck’s been taking care of her.” Jaemin chirps in as he steps back into the room behind Jeno. 

Donghyuck hurries to nod. “But if she’s— If she’s staying at your’s, you can take her back.” 

Karen’s next meow sounds a lot like protest, and as if he agrees with her Jeno’s face scrunches up. 

“That won’t be necessary.” He says. 

Donghyuck sees Jaemin looking at Jeno, confused, and decides to keep the conversation going before he can ask any dumb questions. 

“So what brings you here, if it’s not Karen?” He asks, voice a bit higher than normally. 

“Karen?” Jeno repeats, but doesn’t give them a chance to reply. “Doesn’t matter, she doesn’t concern me.” 

“Right.” Donghyuck nods. “Because she’s not yours. Gotcha.” 

“But you do have cats, don’t you?” Jaemin speaks up. 

Donghyuck winces. Jaemin only knows about Jeno’s cats because Donghyuck told him, and Donghyuck only knows because it’s one of the million things he, embarrassingly, still remembers from when they were eleven and sat next to each other in English class. 

Jeno doesn’t notice anything off with the question. He seems to be ignoring it entirely as he reaches a hand up and rubs it over his face. “Fucking hell.” He groans under his breath. 

If he thinks about it, Donghyuck can see that Jeno looks a bit off. Maybe he’s not feeling well, maybe he should offer him a glass of water or a cup of tea, or to sit down. A little voice in his head reminds him that he still doesn’t know why Jeno is here at all, but he silences it asks: “Are you okay?” 

“ _No_ , I’m not, for fuck’s sake!” Jeno exclaims. Before Donghyuck can give anything back, like offering a drink like he planned to or point out how he’s never expected Jeno to swear as much as he did, Jeno looks at him, his eyes serious. 

“Lee Donghyuck, I am dying.”


	2. Chapter 2

_If he thinks about it, Donghyuck can see that Jeno looks a bit off. Maybe he’s not feeling well, maybe he should offer him a glass of water or a cup of tea, or to sit down. A little voice in his head reminds him that he still doesn’t know why Jeno is here at all, but he silences it asks: “Are you okay?”_

_“ _No_ , I’m not, for fuck’s sake!” Jeno exclaims. Before Donghyuck can give anything back, like offering a drink like he planned to or point out how he’s never expected Jeno to swear as much as he did, Jeno looks at him, his eyes serious. _

_“Lee Donghyuck, I am dying.”_

 

“You mean, you’re sick?” Jaemin asks into the eerily quiet room. 

 

All the anger and tension seems to have bled out of Jeno with his last words. He looks tired now, like a shell of himself. His eyes still bore into Donghyuck’s, something in them that he can’t quite place. 

“No.” He replies. “Or maybe I am, to _your_ standards.” He directs the last part at Jaemin directly, with little hidden disdain, but is looking back at Donghyuck immediately. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jaemin mumbles under his breath, but the other two elect to ignore him. 

Donghyuck gestures to the empty seat next to him and as soon as Jeno’s sitting down, he states: “I’m not a doctor.” 

“ _A doctor_ is not what I need”, Jeno scoffs. “And if I had any other options I wouldn’t even be asking _you_.” 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Donghyuck quips, and almost swallows his tongue immediately afterwards. Ten minutes ago, he didn’t think he would hold a conversation with Lee Jeno and now he is being _sassy_ with him. He’s not entirely sure whether to file that away as a success. 

Despite Donghyuck’s worries, Jeno’s features soften a little bit. “Well, I _am_ here.” 

“You still didn’t say why, exactly.” Jaemin throws in absentmindedly from his perch on the armchair. 

Karen mewls softly and starts the long treck across Donghyuck’s thigh to where Jeno is sitting. 

“You said you were dying?” Jaemin prompts further. It sounds nearly casual. 

“Yes.” Jeno nods, just as conversational. “It’s pretty bad.” 

“What is?” Donghyuck asks. 

Jeno’s eyebrows furrow again. Donghyuck decides he likes it much, much better when they don’t do that. 

“I’m not entirely sure.” He allows. 

“I’ll kind of… Have to know that to help you.” Donghyuck weighs, and wishes he hadn’t a second later when Jeno goes back to scowling. 

“I know that, mouthbreather.” He snaps. 

“Mouth—, dude, what is _up_ with you?!” Jaemin exclaims with that tight smile playing around his lips that he always gets when he’s annoyed with something. 

“Jaemin.” Donghyuck cuts in but his best friend shakes his head. 

“No, Hyuck. He’s acting really weird and it’s freaking me out.” He insists. 

“You’re being insensitive, I’m sure there’s—“ 

A loud sneeze to his left cuts him off. Then another. And a third. 

When he looks over, Jeno is sniffling, while still maintaining his persistent glare, but this time on Karen who is happily curled up on his thigh. 

At the silence in the room, Jeno looks up. 

“He’s allergic to cats.” He says, matter-of-factly. “It’s annoying.” 

Donghyuck blinks. “Are you… Did you just talk about yourself in third person?” 

“Like I said. Weird.” Jaemin repeats. “Are you ever going to tell us why you’re dying, Jeno? Pardon me, why _he_ is dying?” 

“Oh, he isn’t.” Jeno shakes his head. “He’s fine, I guess. _I’m_ dying.” 

Donghyuck blinks some more. Of all the revelations he expected to make today, none of them was that his crush is potentially insane. “Wh—“ He starts, softly, but Jaemin is quicker. 

“What the fuck?” 

It’s not precisely what Donghyuck wanted to say but it’s the gist of it and a very reasonable question, he thinks, yet Jeno still lets his head fall back against the couch and releases a very long, very world-weary groan. 

Slowly but surely, confusion and annoyance are winning out over the fact that the love of his life is sitting on Donghyuck’s couch, and slowly but surely he is remembering that this is _his_ house and he has every right to ask Jeno to leave. 

Before he can act on that thought though, Jeno sits up straight, holding his hands up. 

“Alright.” He says. “Alright, let’s start over.” 

He looks at Karen in his lap, then Jaemin on the armchair, then Donghyuck next to him for a long moment, before sighing and continuing: “Hi. My name is Renjun and I am dying.” 

*** 

What they learn in the next hour or so is this: Jeno has not in fact lied about his identity for his entire life, like Jaemin suspects at first. In fact, they’re not even talking to Jeno. 

They are talking to the plum tree in front of Jeno’s house. 

“When you found her, she was actually trying to help me. It didn’t work, obviously.” Not-Jeno had said, with another glare directed at Karen who just meowed without a care in the world. 

What they also learn is that Renjun is not in fact a regular plum tree. 

“A nymph.” Is what Donghyuck concludes after he watches Jeno’s face scrunch up in confusion when Jaemin asks what exactly they’re dealing with. 

“I guess that’s what you would call it.” Is the reply he gets. “My actual name and that of my kind is not something I can pronounce in this form. The human vocal cords are very limited in function.” 

“Speaking of this _’form’_ ” Jaemin quips in. “What exactly is up with that? Is it, like, possession?” 

“Jeno is my friend.” Is what Renjun says first, then a bit quieter: “At least I’d like to think so.” 

“That sounds a little creepy.” Jaemin states, good-naturedly. 

“We basically grew up together. His parents planted the tree only a month before he was born.” 

Taeyong had once told Donghyuck, when he hadn’t been able to cut him off quickly enough, that there isn’t a lot of information on Nymphs. What he did find in some deep web magic forum — something Donghyuck didn’t know and never planned on knowing that it existed — was that Nymphs weren’t born with their bonded tree, they inhabited it as a sapling, gradually phasing into existence in symbiose with their host. 

They die a natural death as long as their host does, moving on to another afterwards or “becoming one with the ground again”, as the blogpost on the forum had very vaguely put it. 

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.” Renjun explains, something akin to fear slipping into Jeno’s voice for the first time that night. “But it’s getting worse and I didn’t know how much longer I’m going to have, so I had to resort to —“ He gestures to Jeno’s chest. 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Jaemin nods in agreement. 

He had made his peace with the whole thing fairly quick. Donghyuck can see the same kind of glint in his best friend’s eyes that they had when his family talked about his grandmother, awe, wonder, but also determination. 

Donghyuck, as he finds himself doing in most situations in life, can’t bring himself to trust the magic of it all quite as fast. 

“This is not hurting him, right?” He asks. “He’s okay?” 

“Oh, yeah, he’s good.” Renjun assures him. “I did fall twice at the very start, because I had to get used to walking, but that only got him a little scratch.” 

“How does this work, anyway?” Jaemin gets up from the armchair and takes the few steps over to where Jeno/Renjun is sitting. He leans down and adds: “Is he still in there?” 

“I did not dispose him in my dying tree, if that’s what you’re asking.” Renjun replies, sounding a little offended. “He would die immediately. He is my friend.” 

“So where is he?” Donghyuck asks again. 

“He’s still here, with me.” Renjun replies. “Just… taking the backseat.” 

“That sounds terrifying…” Donghyuck mumbles at the same time that Jaemin says: “How do _you_ know what a backseat is?” 

“He’s okay.” Renjun repeats, to Donghyuck, before turning to Jaemin with his eyebrows pinched. “I’m a tree, not an idiot.” He hisses, then adds: “But Jeno called it that.” 

That piques Donghyuck’s interest. “He talks to you?” 

“Oh, yes,” Renjun nods. “He wouldn’t shut up all the way here, all _I can’t just show up at Lee Donghyuck’s house out of the blue that’s so weird, you’re going to embarrass me_ and— He wants me to stop talking.” 

It’s quiet for a few seconds, before Renjun clasps his hands together in his lap and quietly asks: “So, will you help me?” 

The thing is, that in that moment, Donghyuck doesn’t want to do anything else but to help him. Jaemin once said that Donghyuck suffers from a very, very repressed hero complex, he actually said it again only a few days ago when Donghyuck admitted that he spent way more money than entirely necessary on cat food. 

But he knows that he can’t actually do anything for Renjun on his own, his best bet would be Taeyong, but Taeyong is attending classes in a university three hours from here, so they would have to turn to Donghyuck’s father and even that isn’t a safe bet. 

“I’m not—“ 

“He’ll totally help you!” Jaemin assures. “It’ll be fun!” 

“Yeah, preventing my painful demise is certainly going to be fun.” Renjun gives back, a little bit of sarcasm in it but it’s overpowered by the small smile on his lips. 

It’s that smile that renders Donghyuck unable to speak up the entirety of the time Renjun stays. It’s still there when he reckons he should get Jeno home, the sun having disappeared long ago, and they close the front door behind him. 

“What the _hell_ were you thinking?!” He all but yells at Jaemin as soon as Renjun is out of earshot. “You know that I can’t help him!” 

“How do you know that?” Jaemin challenges back. 

Donghyuck blinks. “You know exactly how. I don’t have the gift, Jaemin.” 

“Maybe you don’t need it!” 

“You’re trying to tell me that a nymph possesses the body of Lee Jeno to come to specifically my house, asking for help, and he _doesn’t_ count on magic for that help?” 

Even saying it out loud is ridiculous, Donghyuck can’t possibly imagine Jaemin is serious about this. 

“Look, Hyuck. We don’t know anything about his condition. We’ll have to start from scratch to find out about it and maybe, then, we can get help from your family.” Jaemin reasons. “And until then, it’s a perfect chance to learn, both about your gift and where it comes from, as well as about _Jeno_.” 

The last part is said with that very specific teasing smile that annoys Donghyuck on a good day, but downright infuriates him right in this moment. 

“This _isn’t_ about my dumb crush, Jaemin.” He hisses. “Someone’s life is on the line. Renjun could _die_.” 

He expects Jaemin to backtrack, wants him to apologise, but instead, Jaemin’s eyes turn serious. 

“I know that you can help him.” He says, simply, leaving no room for argument in his tone. 

It knocks the fight out of Donghyuck at once. 

“We still need to tell him.” He sighs, but he can’t deny that his heart maybe started feeling a little weird with the prospect of seeing Jeno again, and with Jaemin’s vote of confidence and Renjun’s blind trust in him. 

A little voice in his head, bitter from years of hoping and waiting and disappointment, tells him that this is what he would feel all the time if the gift hadn’t skipped over him. Special. 

He tries to ignore it as best as he can. 

*** 

Donghyuck doesn’t know if it’s a good or a bad omen when Karen wakes up in a very bad mood the next Monday. 

“Who am I kidding?” He mumbles to himself as he helplessly watches her whine at him. “Why would this be in any way _good_?” 

Karen whines again, as if to agree. 

After ten more minutes of this, she seems to have tired herself out, her small eyes falling shut in long blinks. Donghyuck smiles at her. “That’s okay, you can sleep some more.” He assures her in a low voice. “Maybe it’ll help.” 

Baby-talking, he realizes with a start. He’s baby-talking a cat. And he’s also going to be late for Chemistry if he doesn’t hurry up. 

“God damn it, you’re ruining my life, do you know that?” He hisses, grabs her (albeit carefully) and places her in his hood like he’s grown used to. 

When he hurries down the stairs he hears noises from the kitchen and freezes in the door frame. 

“Why are you here.” He breathes out, forgetting to make it sound like a question. 

At his kitchen counter, in all his denim-jacket-wearing, hair-tousled-just-so glory, sits Lee Jeno. 

“Good morning to you too, Duckie.” Saerom chirps from where she is preparing breakfast. 

“Why is he here?” He directs at her, having yet to get a reply from Jeno — if it even is Jeno he is looking at, he realizes, with a start. 

“I’m taking you to school!” He finally replies, with a small grin. He lifts up the cup in front of him. “Your sister gave me coffee.” 

“How awfully nice of her.” Donghyuck mumbles back absentmindedly. Most of his brain is occupied with Lee Jeno being the first face he saw that morning, another little part with the look Saerom is throwing him. This is going to be terrible. 

“I didn’t know you had friends who take you to school.” She comments with a knowing smile. Donghyuck doesn’t really want to know what she knows. 

“Well, I do.” He replies curtly. “We should leave, by the way, Miss Song will—“

A long, nearly pained whine interrupts him. 

“Was that Karen?” Maybe-Jeno asks, sounding concerned. 

Saerom looks horrified, as Donghyuck turns to her with wide eyes. 

“I can explain!” He hurries out. He can feel his hood wiggle and is certain that right now, it looks like he grew a second, very small and furry head. 

“ _Explain_?!” Saerom repeats, voice shrill. “Explaining is not going to make her less hungry, Donghyuck.” And yes, she never calls him by his full name, and yes, it stings. 

“I have food in my locker at school.” He replies, not daring to meet his sister’s eyes while he lifts Karen out of his hood. 

“You have—“ Saerom interrupts herself as Karen wiggles around in Donghyuck’s hands. “She is a _baby_! Why in the world do _you_ have a baby kitten?!” 

“I couldn’t really do anything against it!” Donghyuck defends himself, but Saerom is having none of it. 

“Well, she’s staying with me. I’m gonna take her to the clinic and make sure she’s okay after you—“ 

Karen whines again. Donghyuck would like to think it sounds less pained now. 

“Oh.” Saerom pauses. They listen for the next noise Karen makes, a soft mewl, not unlike the ones she makes when Donghyuck scratches behind her ear. 

“Well…” Saerom starts again, then sighs. “Alright then.” 

A little more forceful than necessary, she wipes her hands and points to Donghyuck’s lunch on the counter in front of Jeno. 

“You should get going. She wants to stay with you. Make sure to feed her.”

Visibly happy to escape the tense atmosphere of the kitchen, Jeno grabs the paper bag and jumps down from the stool, taking a tentative step towards the door.

And just because he wants to annoy her after she yelled at him, Donghyuck follows him a few steps, before calling over his shoulder: “I think I can manage to keep her alive one more day, I’ve been doing it for a week.” 

Karen meows, and Donghyuck hopes that she is on his side here because everything else would just be pretty embarrassing. 

The door falls shut behind them and only then does Donghyuck remember the first concern he had this morning. Jeno has already jogged around the front of his car and is getting in, so when Donghyuck sits down in the passenger seat, he repeats: “Why are you here?” 

He is still not sure who he is talking to, and it’s starting to freak him out, just the tiniest bit. 

“Oh, I just figured, since you’re helping out, uh—… Is this not okay?” Is the reply he gets, paired with a very, very uncertain glance. 

Too caught up in trying to figure out who is talking to him, and too caught up in trying to accept the fact that Lee Jeno would ever look at him like that, actively or not, Donghyuck misses the moment to reply. 

“I’m sorry.” Maybe-Jeno continues. “I just really don’t know how to go about this whole thing, but I want to help Renjun and I figured we should, I don’t know, make a plan, or something, and Renjun is being very unhelpful, considering we’re supposed to save _his_ life and also I’m still trying to process that my plum tree is talking to me, I feel like _I_ need help—“ 

Jeno— and it _is_ Jeno, Donghyuck is sure of it now, shows no signs of stopping his rambling. Donghyuck has to grab a hold of his forearm to get him to look at him. 

“Dude”, He says when he catches Jeno’s eyes. “Breathe.” 

He does, closing his eyes and furrowing his eyebrows in concentration to focus on his breathing. Donghyuck thinks he can feel Jeno’s heartbeat slowly calm down from where he’s holding onto him, and he realizes that from how close he is leaning into Jeno’s space, he can count his eyelashes, and that the little mole right under Jeno’s eyes looks more kissable than ever. 

Jeno opens his eyes. 

“That’s why I’m here.” He says, so quietly that Donghyuck nearly doesn’t catch it as he lets go of Jeno’s arm and leans back into the passenger seat. 

The puzzlement must be clear on his face, because Jeno continues: “This whole thing terrifies me. It’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, and it’s not even— It’s not something I can just tell my mom about and ask for advice, you know?” He laughs, a short and nearly hysteric thing, at how ridiculous that idea even is. “But Renjun said that you— That your family can help him, and you seemed so… Well, not cool with it, but you didn’t seem scared. When Renjun talked to you, it nearly seemed like something normal, something that happens to people.” 

He had dropped his gaze while he was talking training it on the steering wheel instead of Donghyuck. His fingers are tapping an uneven beat on the surface of it, and Donghyuck realizes that Jeno’s words still have that slightest uncertainty to it, a mixture of embarrassment as well as fear, he can place now. 

Weakness is not something that is easy to admit to, Donghyuck knows from first hand experience. Jeno did just that, to Donghyuck, in hope for reassurance, for certainty. 

The urge to stop the trembling in Jeno’s hands overpowers every rosy thought that Donghyuck’s brain can throw at him about crushes and trust and feelings as he blurts out: “What do you have first period?” 

Jeno blinks. “Study hall.” He answers, after a moment. 

“Perfect, let’s go get some coffee.” 

“But...” Jeno is still blinking at him. “Don’t you have Chemis—“ 

“Miss Song will survive not seeing my face today.” Donghyuck waves him off. 

He’s met with more silence, and decides to take pity on Jeno’s obvious confusion. 

“You were thrown into all of this without much warning.” He says. “The least you deserve is an explanation. I can’t really tell you where magic comes from or how it works, but I _can_ tell you why I seem so used to it. So, you’re buying me a coffee.” 

He doesn’t quite know what he expected, but it wasn’t Jeno breaking out into a small grin. Donghyuck’s heart skips a beat. Karen meows from his hood. 

“Alright, tell me then.” Jeno smiles as he starts the car. 

Donghyuck takes a few seconds for his heart to calm down, then sighs a long sigh. 

“Well, getting down to it, it all started with my grandmother…” 

***

It’s only when Donghyuck is halfway through his ridiculously overpriced Caramel Latte, that he realizes several things. 

One of these things is that the barista winked at either him or Jeno three times as he was setting down the brownies Jeno ordered between them. 

It’s clear what the guy thinks is going on, and Donghyuck can’t actually believe his heart as it _doesn’t_ entirely freak out at the notion— He is too busy telling Jeno about his grandmother’s sketchbooks at home, promising him to show them to him soon. 

Another is that telling someone who isn’t Jaemin about his family’s whole _thing_ isn’t as terrifying as he expected, not if they look at you with wide, wondrous eyes and the tiniest smile. 

“So she understood her?” Jeno asks in an amazed whisper, when Donghyuck explains what Saerom could do, and his smile widens that much more when Karen meows right into Donghyuck’s ear as if to contribute to the conversation. 

The third and final thing Donghyuck realizes nearly makes him choke on his latte. 

“Wait.” He interrupts Jeno in the middle of a question about that one time Taeyong accidentally filled Donghyuck’s entire crib with sunflower petals when he was a baby. 

Jeno raises his eyebrows in surprise as Donghyuck points at him, right to the middle of his forehead. 

“Is Renjun still there?” He asks bluntly. 

Jeno’s face morphs into something more relaxed. “Oh, yeah.” He nods. 

Somehow that doesn’t sit right with Donghyuck, though he can’t quite place why. It’s a similar kind of feeling to the one when the barista winked at them, like he is being watched and scrutinised, like he and Jeno both are, as they’re sitting here together, over cups of coffee and a plate of brownies. 

His voice barely betrays any of that feeling when he asks: “So, what does he have to say?” 

Jeno shakes his head. “Nothing right now. He’s not talking to me.” 

“Is he mad at you?” 

Jeno leans in a little closer, something conspiratorial in his voice as he replies: “I think he’s always mad at everyone.” He keeps a meaningful glance at Donghyuck for a second, before he leans back in his seat and continues. “But, no. I just thought it was kind of… intrusive for him to always listen in on everything I hear and say. We leave each other alone now.” 

‘Leaving each other alone’ doesn’t seem like something that two people sharing the same headspace could work, but Jeno’s nod as he ends his explanations seems final, so Donghyuck doesn’t mention it. 

It does calm that irrational feeling within him, the nerves of getting caught doing something, even if he’s not quite sure what. 

“So how does that work?” He asks. 

Jeno’s eyebrows scrunch up. “I’m not entirely sure. But I can’t hear him. He said it’s him blocking himself off.” He shrugs, a little helpless. “Probably magic.” 

“Probably.” Donghyuck nods. “So what happens if he needs to speak? Does he politely knock or—“ 

“If I need to speak, I will speak.” Jeno cuts him off, only— The look in his eyes is sharper suddenly, the lines of his face settle differently than they usually would. Until they don’t and Jeno’s eyebrows relax back into confusion. 

“Did he just…?” He asks and all Donghyuck can do as he realizes is nod. 

“Don’t you know when he’s… taking over?” 

Jeno shakes his head. “Not really. It’s sort of like sleeping, I guess. Only very suddenly.” 

“That makes sense.” Donghyuck weighs, even though he isn’t quite sure he understands. The truth is that he doesn’t, doesn’t understand anything about what Renjun is capable of. It might be unsettling. It should be. 

“Can _you_ take over like that?” Is his next question. He was supposed to be telling Jeno about magic today. 

“No. I think it’s because I’m not— Well, I’m not what he is, I’m just me.” 

It should be unsettling. Some of that must show on Donghyuck’s face because he makes sure to tack on: “But it’s fine, really! I trust him.” 

“He wouldn’t hurt you.” Donghyuck allows. “But he doesn’t— he doesn’t really know how to _be you_. What if one day he needs to take over while you, I don’t know, hang with the soccer team, and you have no way to do damage control.” 

Jeno thinks about this for a long moment. 

“I don’t think they would notice.” Is what he settles on. 

It sounds very self-deprecating, very much inspires the need in Donghyuck to tell Jeno that he is amazing, to ask him if he isn’t aware how popular he is, how is friends would definitely notice, but Jeno is faster and tacks on: “I get what you’re saying, but… My teammates don’t really _expect_ plant-possession in their everyday life, you know? Mark would probably worry that I’m taking drugs, and Yukhei would force me to let him buy me dinner or something, but it’s not like they’re going to corner me and make me spill all the magic secrets of this town.” 

He smiles a little at the mental image, before his face turns serious again. “Which… is it really just your family? Renjun said you’re the only ones who can help him, and you said your grandmother was the only one who’s ever been to the meadow…” 

“It’s just th— It’s just us.” Donghyuck says. “At least I think so. I think we would have noticed.” 

Jeno grins. “Because unlike Mark and Yukhei you _do_ expect plant-possession in your life?” 

“Believe me when I say that nothing could have prepared me for you standing in my living room and insulting me as a mouthbreather.” 

“You know how to make a boy feel special.” Jeno replies with a laugh. Before Donghyuck can come back from that with a no doubt witty and brilliant one liner, that he has definitely ready at the tip of his tongue, he adds: “I trust you too, by the way.” 

He turns to ask the barista for their check then, so he doesn’t see Donghyuck’s cheeks dusting a rosy pink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished exams and im on semester break until april so fingers crossed i'll be the very most productive there ever was!!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this, please talk to me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/lilaliacs) or [cc](http://www.curiouscat.me/fullstar) hehe <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a kind of heavy chapter, so be prepared for that! <3

“So?” Is what greets Donghyuck as soon as he steps into the kitchen. “You said you could explain and I’m all ears.” 

Frankly, Donghyuck is over it. When he and Jeno had arrived at school grounds, it was well into second period and they had walked into Kim Yeri in the parking lot, throwing them a curious glance. Jaemin was waiting for Donghyuck by their usual tree on the quad, furious about being kept waiting, but still equipped with the most annoying set of wiggling eyebrows when he caught Jeno bidding Donghyuck goodbye and sprinting off to his calculus class that he’d been way too late for. 

By lunch, Donghyuck was sure Yeri had somehow spread five different stories about what he and Jeno had been up to, something he always believed was one of her superpowers. It was obvious in the way people stared at him, no matter how much Jaemin insisted he was imagining it. 

So Donghyuck has been over the feeling that he needs to explain himself for a good few hours by the time he’s confronted with his sister impatiently crossing her arms. 

“It’s not that serious, you know?” He huffs, reaching back for Karen and setting her down in front of him on the counter. She meows. 

“She thinks it is.” Saerom translates. 

“Yeah, well, she’s dumb and a baby.” Donghyuck insists. He’s aware that he sounds childish, but really, he just wants to go to his room and curl up in his bed until sunrise the next day. 

He huffs again. “I got her down from a tree and she wouldn’t let me leave without taking her with me so she’s been staying here since.” 

“You could have told me.” Saerom throws in. 

“You were busy! And you would have looked at me all judgy and patronising, like you are right now.” He turns away from her to rummage through a cabinet for a packet of Oreos he’s sure his father hid there. 

She seems to accept this because the next thing she says is: “What do you mean she didn’t let you leave? She’s tiny, it’s not like she would have been able to hold you back.” 

Karen has wandered across the counter, to where Donghyuck is still on his tiptoes to look for the Oreos and dangerously close to the counter. She meows in surprise when Donghyuck reaches down and pushes her away from the edge a little. 

“She _is_ tiny, and she was yelling at me.” He explains, as his hands finally catch on the plastic wrapping he’s been looking for. “Also she is dumb, and a baby.” He adds as he lowers himself back onto his feet only to promptly jump up on the counter. “ _Someone_ needed to take care of her.” 

“And you were clearly the best choice.” Saerom states, sarcasm clear in her voice. 

“She seemed to think so.” Donghyuck shrugs, two Oreos already in his mouth and a kitten attempting to claw her way up onto his lap. 

Saerom purses her lips and looks at them for a long moment, before mirroring her brother’s shrug. “I guess you’re doing a good job.” She allows. 

Donghyuck can see the dangerous glint in her eyes as she skips across the kitchen and steals a cookie. 

“So,” She starts again. It’s drawn out, quieter, said with that same glint and a small grin to match it. Donghyuck is absolutely terrified. 

“Lee Jeno, driving you to school, huh?” 

If he thought Jaemin’s eyebrows were annoying, Saerom’s are entirely nerve-wrecking. 

“No.” He decides, sliding off the counter and grabbing his cookies and his kitten in one swift motion. “This conversation ends here.” 

“You win, for now!” Saerom calls after him as he takes the steps two at a time. “Just wait until Taeyong hears about this!” 

His door falls shut behind him and Donghyuck echoes it with a quiet groan. 

This has been his one chance to tell Saerom about the real reason for Jeno’s sudden cameo in his life, to make her call Taeyong right then and there and ask him to come home and help because she’s always been better at persuading their brother than him. 

But he didn’t. 

“I’m an idiot, Karen.” He sighs. “An absolute buffoon.” She makes a short noise, not even a meow. Donghyuck imagines she’s trying to say something along the lines of “Well, duh.” 

Explaining it, asking for help, calling the whole family together, it would mean more acknowledgment of the gift than he’s granted it in the past five years altogether. Donghyuck isn’t sure he’s ready for it. He doesn’t know how to handle it. He’s absolutely certain he is being a selfish asshole. 

“Renjun asked me for help.” He mumbles. Having a tiny ball of fur living with him has increased his tendency to voice his thoughts out loud tenfold. “And Jeno said he trusts me.” 

Karen yips again. Right now, Donghyuck wants nothing but validation of his selfishness, so he interprets it as just that. 

“Exactly! And I got _you_ from Renjun’s tree! That has to count for something, right?”

There’s no reply, as Karen curls up on his pillow and seems to fall asleep immediately. 

“Yeah, you’re right.” He nods to himself, settling on his bed too and resting his head right next to where Karen lays peacefully. With everything that happened that day, he drifts off in record time. 

*** 

“This planet is absolutely fucked.” Jaemin states, from where he is hanging upside down on Donghyuck’s couch, his phone having several tabs about dying wildlife open. 

“You don’t say.” Donghyuck hums, sprawled across the carpet, several of random notebooks filled with his grandmother’s, his father’s and occasionally Taeyong’s handwriting open around him. 

“I don’t want to hear either of you speak about this.” Grumbles Renjun. He has taken control today, had done so from the second they arrived at Donghyuck’s house. He hasn’t spoken to Jeno in a few days, so it’s just as surreal as it would otherwise be, to see him curled up in his armchair, a particularly thick volume of his grandmother’s notes open on his lap that he is slowly leafing through. 

“Mrow.” Says Karen, curled up next to Jaemin on a pillow. It sounds like she agrees with Renjun. 

Donghyuck and Jaemin both mumble quiet apologies, Jaemin goes back to his research, but Donghyuck’s eyes stay trained on the plant-possessed teenager across from him. 

Renjun’s movements are slow, nearly agonisingly so. He’s been pouring over the same few pages for at least an hour now, and at first Donghyuck thought it might be Renjun’s insufficient grasp on human scripture that slowed the process down. Then he remembered that about a week ago, at one of their first research meetings, Renjun had scanned over a full notebook in record time, and was able to quote bits of it word by word. 

“I still don’t understand why we’re here, by the way.” Jaemin pipes up, as Donghyuck watches what he believes is Renjun fighting against Jeno’s eyelids drooping shut. “Wouldn’t it help to—“ 

Donghyuck pays him no mind as he cuts in: “Renjun, are you okay?” 

An angry sort of frown sets in the lines of Jeno’s face. “ _I_ am.” Renjun gives back. “But your stupid, human bodies are totally not up to standard with what is needed.” 

“What do you mean?” Jaemin asks, sitting upright as Renjun forcefully closes the notebook and does the same. He leans back into the armchair, seemingly exhausted after only a moment. 

“You need too much sleep.” Renjun explains. “But it’s so redundant! The night can be used for useful things, for research, to find out what is going on!” He sounds mostly annoyed, but Donghyuck can detect a little hint of distress too. 

“Is that what you did? Research, instead of letting Jeno sleep?” 

“It’s not like he’s particularly _awake_ when I’m doing things.” Renjun grumbles. 

“But his body is.” Donghyuck throws in. “While you’re sharing it, you need to take care of it for the both of you, you know? This isn’t healthy.” 

He briefly notes that he sounds like his dad, scolding him and his siblings when they were younger, but he doesn’t dwell on it, as Renjun murmurs something more about insufficient bodily functions of humans, and how fragile they are. 

“I think we should take a break.” Donghyuck suggests. 

“A break? We can’t be taking bre—“ Renjun is cut off by a long yawn. “We can’t be taking breaks.” 

“Renjun.” Jaemin coaxes, keeping his voice carefully smooth. It also reminds Donghyuck of his father talking to him and his siblings. “I think it’s best if you let Jeno take over for now, let the two of you take a nap. You both need rest.” 

Donghyuck nods. “It’s going to be fine. Jaemin and me are going to keep looking.” 

Renjun sighs, something he told them last week is something exclusive to humans that he very much appreciates. Only a moment later, his whole body seems to go slack as Jeno falls back into the cushion. 

“I want to die.” He croaks, not raising his head to look at either of the other two. 

“That’s fine.” Jaemin hums absentmindedly, pocketing his phone. “Duckie, let’s get snacks.” 

Donghyuck is halfway to his feet when he notices Jeno attempting to do the same. He watches him move to sit up in slow-motion, eyes bleary, before asking: “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Getting a snack?” Jeno gives back, pointing a vague gesture to where Jaemin is disappearing towards Donghyuck’s kitchen. 

“Yeah, no. You’re taking a nap.” 

Donghyuck takes the few steps over to the couch, carefully lifting Karen from her pillow and depositing her in her designated spot in his hood before practically throwing the pillow Jeno’s way. “I don’t know when Renjun let you sleep last, but you look like an extra on The Walking Dead.” 

Jeno winces lightly as he arranges the pillow somewhere under his head. “Just what I wanted to hear.” 

The blanket Donghyuck carries over to the armchair is a fuzzy, baby-blue monstrosity that Taeyong left behind when he left for college, a certified nap-companion. “I’m just telling the truth.” He grumbles, as he places the blanket over Jeno’s shoulders, much more carefully than the pillow. All the fuzz could probably kill a man. 

“Alright,” He chirps when he’s fairly certain Jeno is not gonna suffocate from Taeyong’s blanket. Suddenly he’s very aware of how close he leaned in, of how low the lights are on in the living room and of how heart-wrecking the sight of Jeno sleepily blinking up at him is. “S-sweet dreams, or something.” He manages to choke out, standing upright a little too fast. Karen makes a small noise of surprise.

Jeno’s lips curl up into the smallest smile as he hums, his eyes already shut. Donghyuck’s heartbeat has still not calmed down when he’s power-walked to the kitchen. 

Like a miracle, Jaemin doesn’t comment. 

“Found anything yet?” He asks, voice uncharacteristically serious. 

Jaemin has always chalked up more to magic and the gift than Donghyuck’s dignity has ever allowed him. When Taeyong or Saerom or their father mentioned it, Donghyuck usually tried to escape the conversation as quickly as possible, but Jaemin listened attentively, eyes bright and ready to ask a million questions. 

On good days, Donghyuck finds it endearing, how amazed Jaemin is with the supernatural, on bad days it’s downright infuriating. 

Right now, for the first time probably since he’s known Jaemin, Donghyuck can’t blame his best friend for his curiosity. 

“Nothing important.” He sighs. “Taeyong has a lot of notes about nymphs, but they’re mostly just assumptions. There’s nothing about them getting sick, and it’s not like he ever met one to chat with.” 

“I don’t know if that would help.” Jaemin weighs in. “We _have_ a nymph to chat with, and he has no clue what’s going on.” 

“That doesn’t have to mean _no_ nymph knows anything.” Donghyuck hops up on a stool and leans his head on his hands. 

It’s quiet for a moment. 

“Do you think Renjun would have asked us for help, if there were other nymphs that could help?”

The question settles deep in Donghyuck’s stomach, twisting uncomfortably. “Do you think he’s alone?” 

Jaemin shrugs. “He did say he wouldn’t have come here if he had other options.” 

Rejun had said that, on that first night two weeks ago. Donghyuck doesn’t want to believe it, doesn’t want his stomach to twist any further. 

“It can’t be.” He shakes his head. “In my grandmother’s stories, she said that her clearing was _full_ of creatures like Renjun. I— I’m one myself, for like a fourth. There has to be others out there.” 

He realizes that he sounds desperate. He knows that Jaemin has a point when he says: “But Renjun isn’t from your grandmother’s clearing, and your grandmother never found it again. We don’t know for certain that it even still exists.” 

Donghyuck doesn’t know why it unsettles him like this, the thought of Renjun being alone, having no one, no family to turn to. They never asked Renjun himself, don’t know if his kind even hold family to the same standards as they do, but the thought is still unbearable for Donghyuck. 

Right then, in his kitchen, as Jaemin rummages through his father’s monstrous collection of salted peanuts, Lee Jeno taking a possession-induced nap in Donghyuck’s favourite armchair, his kitten softly purring somewhere behind his ear, he thinks of something he hasn’t remembered in a long time. 

_”No matter what happens, Sweetie.”_ his mother’s voice echoes in his head. _”No matter how much magic there is to put up with, I’ll always be on your side.”_

Back then, Donghyuck was nine years old, inclined to believe everything she told him, inclined to find solace in her words that the gift and his lack thereof didn’t give him. He had told her about how he didn’t want the gift if it doesn’t want him. She’d smiled, tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and whispered promises, where his father and siblings couldn’t hear them. 

He was nine years old and he didn’t think his mother capable of hate, of lies, not concerning him, not his father or his siblings. 

Three months later, she was gone, leaving nothing but a note on Donghyuck’s bedside table with her new phone number and the sinking feeling of emptiness. 

Saerom had cried, for days, not leaving her room. Taeyong had been angry, staying out later; sometimes Donghyuck heard him yell at their father, or at nothing at all. Their father was silent, until one night he gathered them all in the living room. 

Donghyuck sat in the same armchair Jeno is sleeping in right now, when their father had said, his voice level: “I know you’re angry, I know you’re sad. So am I. But your mother made a decision, one I thought she made years ago when she met me, but she changed her mind and it’s no use being angry.” 

He pulled Saerom closer as she started sniffling again. 

“The important thing is, that we still have each other. And we will always have each other.” His voice was strained and when Donghyuck looked over, silent tears were streaming down Taeyong’s face as well. 

It broke his heart, seeing them like that. He wished they didn’t have to feel that way, wish his mother hadn’t felt the way she did, wish she would have kept her promise. 

Later on, he realized that it had been a promise only to him, that the rest of his family hadn’t been left with notes on their bedside tables. But right in that moment, as he climbed into Taeyong’s lap even though he was too old for it, as he wiped his brother’s tears away with the sleeve of his shit and reached out to take Saerom’s hand, he made a promise himself. 

His mother had hated the gift, had let her hatred and fear of it cloud her heart and ripped it away from her family. Donghyuck vowed that he would never let that happen, that he would never leave them behind. 

He ignored the gift, and he ignored the reasons it gave his mother to leave. He tried his best to ignore the hole she left when she did. 

“We should try to find it.” He says to Jaemin quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “The clearing. His kind— I don’t know. But if they’re out there, and if they can help, then we need to find them. And if they can’t, and we can’t either then he— He shouldn’t be alone.” 

He isn’t looking at Jaemin as he says it, rushing the words out at the counter, but he can feel his best friend’s eyes on him for a long moment in the silence they leave. He feels Karen shift around and then a soft nip to his ear. It feels like reassurance.

“We’re going to try.” Jaemin replies, his voice gentle. “I don’t know how, exactly, but we—“ 

A loud noise from the living room interrupts him. A strangled cry. 

Jaemin’s eyes turning wide is the last thing Donghyuck takes in before he is sprinting towards the noise. 

They find Jeno on the floor of the living room, a few notebooks buried under him where he is curled in on himself. For a moment, it looks like he’s still asleep, maybe just slipped from the armchair. 

But then a shudder goes through his whole body, a violent one, and another choked noise slips past his lips. 

“Jeno!” Donghyuck exclaims, kneeling down next to him, unsure whether it is safe to touch him. Karen struggles her way out of his hood and darts to hide somewhere behind the fartherst spot of the couch. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Jaemin asks, his voice shrill where he’s frozen in the door frame. 

“I don’t know.” Donghyuck admits, breathless. Another tremor runs through Jeno’s body as he takes a sharp breath. 

“Is it— _Is it_ Jeno?” 

Before Donghyuck can answer, fingers twist into the sleeve of his hoodie in a vice grip. 

“Hyuck,” Jeno chokes out. “Hyuck, it hurts.” 

“It’s him.” Donghyuck throws back to Jaemin, before he covers Jeno’s hand with his own and leans closer. “What hurts, Jeno? What’s wrong?” 

“I— I don’t know.” There are tears streaming down Jeno’s cheeks, his eyes screwed shut. “It—… Renjun isn’t—…” He cuts off, pressing his lips into a harsh line as he shakes again, no doubt suppressing another cry. 

Donghyuck feels his own eyes sting as he runs his free hand over Jeno’s back, even though he’s fairly certain it won’t help to ease the pain. 

“It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay, we can fix this.” He whispers breathlessly, feeling Jeno’s muscles tense in pain again. 

Suddenly, Jaemin is next to him. 

“Renjun.” He says, his voice firm. “Renjun, stop this.” 

“Renjun wouldn’t hurt him.” Donghyuck says, a little disbelieving that Jaemin would think that. 

Renjun sometimes doesn’t know how to act, and he is becoming increasingly annoyed at a lot of human customs, but he would never intentionally put Jeno through this much pain. 

But Jaemin pays him no mind. He takes Jeno’s face between his hands and twists it up a little, so that they’re facing each other. 

“ _Renjun_ ” He repeats again, more urgent this time. 

Donghyuck is about to tell Jaemin off again, when Jeno’s body goes rigid beneath his hand for just a split second. 

In the next, Jeno gasps in another sudden breath, his eyes flying open. For just a moment, Donghyuck thinks he sees them shining, like emeralds and the sun filtering through crowns of trees and everything that’s alive. Then it’s gone, Jeno’s eyelids fall shut again, and his body goes slack. 

“Wh—“ Donghyuck’s voice breaks and he has to start over. “What happened?” 

“I don’t know.” Jaemin whispers as he slowly retracts his hands. Nothing seems to be left of whatever strong resolve seems to have made him act before. “Renjun?” He asks again, barely above a breath. 

From the corner of his eyes, Donghyuck sees Karen slowly tap towards them, still seeming unsure whether it’s safe. He just wants to extend a hand towards her, to calm her down, when Jeno’s eyelids flutter open, his eyes their usual dark brown. 

“I’m so sorry.” Renjun rasps, moving to sit up. Donghyuck helps him, slowly, before scooting a few inches away. “I don— I don’t know what happened.” 

He looks between Donghyuck, Jaemin and Jeno’s hands in his lap nearly desperately, as if one of them will have explanations. 

“He was sleeping, and I was resting and suddenly I— I couldn’t hold it back this time. Usually I can hold it back.” 

Donghyuck narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?” 

“It hasn’t happened a lot since we’ve been together.” Renjun continues, eyes still flitting around the room. “It’s not this strong usually, I—“ He screws them shut tightly. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” 

“Was this—“ Jaemin starts, but he has to try again. “Renjun, was that _your_ pain?” 

Renjun opens his eyes again, blinks once, twice, then nods. 

“You’ve been going through this the entire time?!” Jaemin exclaims. 

Again, Renjun nods. “But Jeno wasn’t!” He throws in, quickly. “I blocked it off from him. I couldn’t, this time.” He hangs his head. “I’m sorry.” 

“Renjun.” Donghyuck leans forward and takes his hand again. “You don’t need to be sorry. You should have told us.” 

Renjun only nods, and it’s silent for a long minute. Karen takes the last strides over to them and attempts to climb onto Renjun’s lap. If Donghyuck didn’t know better he’d think she is trying to comfort him. He reaches out and gently pushes her towards the door instead. With how weak Jeno’s body already seems to be, he doesn’t need his allergies acting up on top of it. 

The look the kitten throws him is nearly betrayed and he sends her a mental apology, before she darts out of the room, probably to curl up on his bed. 

Renjun breaks the silence of the room, then: “I would like to leave now.” 

Donghyuck looks up in alarm. “Leave?” He repeats. 

“You don’t have to leave, we can stop this!” Jaemin rushes out, a little panicked. 

Renjun has a tired look in his eyes as he looks up at them, but there’s something else too, something warm. “Not leave as in go away.” He explains, softly. “Just—“ He lifts a hand and taps against the side of Jeno’s head. “Tell him I’m sorry.” 

His eyes close, for just a second. They open again, way quicker. “He has nothing to be sorry for!” Jeno gasps out. 

“He’s been going through this all by himself, and I didn’t even _know_ , I had no idea it’s this bad, we—“ His voice is frantic. “We have to _do_ something! Why are we still sitting here, we—“ 

“Jeno!” 

Donghyuck puts two hands on Jeno’s shoulder, forcing him to look at him. Unexpectedly, Jeno shuts up immediately. 

“This is… It’s a lot.” Donghyuck starts. 

Jaemin snorts humourlessly next to him. “You could call it that.” 

“Jaemin and me have a plan.” Donghyuck continues. He hadn’t been entirely sure about it back in the kitchen, didn’t know how to go about it, but now there’s no doubt: Renjun needs help, and they need help. He is going to call Taeyong the first chance he gets, and he is going to mobilise his family, hell, every shrub of weeds in the area, to help him find the clearing. 

“We’re going to help him.” He says, with conviction. “He’s going to be okay.” 

Jeno nods, as if Donghyuck is making sense. He doesn’t think he is. 

“But not tonight.” Donghyuck concludes. Jeno opens his mouth to protest but he shakes his head before he can. “You need to rest, after the sleep deprivation and— and just now.” 

“And so do we.” Jaemin chips in. “We can’t help Renjun when we’re not at the top of our game.” The smile he says it with is forced, but Donghyuck appreciates the effort. 

“Fine.” Jeno allows. “Fine, I should go home, I—“ He goes to stand up, Donghyuck and Jaemin following closely, but stumbles before he’s even fully to his feet. Donghyuck can just grab a hold on his arm so he doesn’t fall on his face. 

“You can stay here.” He offers, even though it’s more a statement than an offer. 

“Fine.” Jeno breathes again. 

With combined efforts, Jaemin and Donghyuck heave Jeno up the stairs into Donghyuck’s room. Donghyuck is pretty sure Jeno falls asleep about halfway down the hallway, with the way he’s already out like a light by the time they get him into the bed. 

Karen just lifts her tiny head where she’s curled up on top of Donghyuck’s Bulbasaur plushie, and goes immediately back to sleep. 

Jaemin whispers something about how his mother is going to kill him if he isn’t home before midnight, gives Donghyuck’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then he’s out of the door. 

Saerom is out with some of her coworkers, his father is at some kind of dinner party his boss is hosting and they both won’t be home for hours. 

It seemed like a blessing this morning, the perfect opportunity to snoop around in their notes without them noticing, but now Donghyuck is regretting every decision that lead to this. 

Suddenly, he feels utterly alone.

He made promises he doesn’t know he can keep, but Renjun trusts him, and so does Jeno, and even Jaemin. His family trusts him, even though they have no idea what he’s gotten himself into.

And he doesn’t know if he is worth their trust. 

For all he knows he could be about to betray them just as much as his mother had. He wonders if she felt this empty, this utterly, painfully hollow, at the prospect of it. 

It’s suffocating, making it hard to breathe, making him feel like he was dumped into ice water, and like it’s never going to stop— Until it does. 

A hand taps against his thigh softly, and when he looks down, Jeno is blinking up at him, eyes barely opening. 

“You should sleep too.” He mumbles, words slurring together. 

“Yeah.” Donghyuck breathes. “Yeah, I probably should.” 

Jeno hums, scooting over the tiniest bit so there’s a free space in Donghyuck’s bed next to him. 

Donghyuck thinks he should just wait for Jeno to fall back asleep, then he will go back to the living room and toss and turn for the rest of the night — there’s no way his thoughts will let him sleep. 

But after a few moments of silence, Jeno hums again, a little more impatient than the first time. It’s not as weak as the tap from before when he wraps a hand around Donghyuck’s wrist and pulls him down to lay next to him. 

“Sleep.” He repeats. 

Donghyuck says nothing, not sure how to explain that his brain is too loud, his chest too tight, the air too thin— 

Jeno lets go of his hand, but only to wrap an arm around Donghyuck’s torso gently, pulling him closer. 

“It’s going to be okay.” He whispers soothingly. “You’re going to be okay.” 

Donghyuck doesn’t know if it’s the comfortable weight of Jeno’s arm that calms his breathing down, or Jeno’s voice drowning out every single suffocating thought, or the faint smell of his shampoo. 

It smells like a forest and something that was most definitely advertised to protect even the most fragile masculinity, and Donghyuck’s last thought is not how he’s going to let down every single person in his life, it’s how annoying advertising can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was very sad , all in all. it gets a little better, i promise!!
> 
> if you have questions or concernts, you can find me on twitter (lilaliacs) or curiouscat (fullstar)!! or you can just leave them in the comments <3


	4. Chapter 4

Donghyuck doesn’t think he ever put this much work into anything. 

When his grades slack he might pull an all-nighter or two, when he gets really obsessed with a Broadway show he might memorise every song in one afternoon, but none of that ever goes to the same lengths as this. 

“It’s a life or death situation.” He tells his father with a glare when he makes a joking comment about it. “Renjun might _die_. I think my Biology homework can wait.” 

His father ducks his head and goes back to the notebook he was pouring over. 

After Renjun revealed to them the pain he’s been going through, Donghyuck wasted no more time to secrecy and sneaking around. Before either Saerom or his father could make no-doubt embarrassing comments about Jeno joining them for breakfast that Sunday morning, in one of Donghyuck’s hoodies nonetheless, he had told them exactly what he’d been up to the weeks before that. He’d ended with an instruction to call Taeyong and make sure that he’ll be coming home as soon as possible and had left room for no further discussion. 

He’d been quite proud of himself, afterwards. 

What he isn’t proud of, is that he hasn’t left behind _all_ secrecy and sneaking around. 

“So, Jaemin’s idea,” Renjun speaks up. He’s sitting on the carpet, rolling a tiny colourful ball around for Karen to play with. Every once in a while he rolls it farther aways so he has time to sneeze before she’s back. “When are we doing that?” 

“When Taeyong gets here tomorrow.” Donghyuck gives back. 

“But why can’t you just do it?” Renjun goes on. “You said it yourself, this is a life or death situation, why are we waiting—“ 

“It’s all part of the plan.” Donghyuck interrupts him quickly, pointedly ignoring the look Saerom is throwing him from the couch. 

Quietly, he blows air out through his nose and directs his attention to the frustratingly short list of theories they have come up with so far. 

Jaemin’s first guess had been some kind of parasite, a fungus that caused the tree to rot, something mundane that could happen to fruit trees who aren’t also Renjun as well. Renjun said that he would have realized it sooner, if it was the case. He also said that other beings of nature fear his kind too much to infest them. Donghyuck thinks about that a lot, usually accompanied by a shudder. 

Saerom had quipped in that perhaps, it was psychological. “Maybe,” She said thoughtfully with a concerned look Renjun’s way. “You have some deep rooted issues that you need to deal with.” 

“My tree is dying.” Renjun replied drily. “I think my issues are very deep rooted indeed.” 

Jaemin had giggled for a full 10 minutes after that, but Saerom still made Donghyuck write it down. 

No new suggestions had come in for a while after that, until Renjun had looked at the sad little list and mumbled: “Jeno thinks it’s because I’m lonely.” 

Donghyuck truly hasn’t understood how the quite literal compartmentalising Jeno and Renjun have going on works, but it’s not often that Jeno expresses opinions on anything magic-related that aren’t utter confusion and wonder. He put it down with the other theories.

The paper is empty below that, just some random squiggles when Donghyuck tested if the ballpoint he was using was dried out. It’s a little depressing, a little scary. The words seem to taunt him, jump and jumble infront of his eyes, make him feel dizzy. His father is reading out a passage from a notebook, Jaemin’s phone is dinging with way too many notifications, Renjun keeps bopping his knee against the coffee table and Karen is scratching at the same bit of hardwood floor over and over again. 

It all becomes too loud and grating at once, Donghyuck isn’t getting anything done even though he _has to_ but he can’t because there's not enough ideas and too much noise and too many people in the room and because he just can’t because he’s inadequate like that. 

He barely avoids slamming his head on the table and presses his hands over his eyes instead, to at least block out the dancing words in his own handwriting. He takes in a breath and it feels like his throat is made from parchment. 

Suddenly there’s a tap to his shoulder.

“Your grandmother’s sketchbooks.” Renjun says. “Where are they?” 

Donghyuck blinks up at him for a second, then nods towards the hallway, getting up in the same breath and motioning for Renjun to follow him. Getting out of the room with all its grating noise and the air getting thinner and thinner is probably not the worst idea. They don’t need him in there anyways, there’s nothing he can really do that would help them. 

Maybe Renjun can actually find anything useful in the sketchbooks. 

They’re not held with the rest of the notebooks, for whatever reason. Donghyuck thinks it’s just because his father is sentimental, and the sketchbooks are far more ornate and eccentric than her plain black notebooks had been. There’s three of them, all the same model, a dark green with gold prints on them, standing on a little shelf by the second floor landing, a few steps from the door to Donghyuck’s room. 

He gathers them in his arms after taking the steps two at a time and heads straight for his door. He hopes Renjun won’t ask why they’re not going back to the living room. 

He doesn’t, miraculously, instead only follows Donghyuck into his room, looking around in what might be curiosity, or wonder. 

All of Donghyuck’s insides feel far too tumultuous to feel self-conscious about the way Renjun’s eyes linger on the tons of photographs on his wall or the other random nick nacks across the room. He stacks the sketchbooks at one end of the bed, crawls unceremoniously to the other one, grabs a plushie at random and wraps around it as he leans against his headboard. 

He’s not planning on paying Renjun any mind as he does whatever research he’s planned, but Renjun hasn’t actually started any research yet. He’s still standing a good few feet from Donghyuck’s bed, eyes trained on a series of photos from when Jaemin dragged Donghyuck to the beach. It had been a two hour trip, with the sole purpose to take _”nice insta pics”_ of Donghyuck, when neither of them had active Instagram accounts. They spent only about twenty minutes on taking photos, then a good few hours on demolishing as much ice cream as they could. It had been a successful trip. Donghyuck can’t quite tell why Renjun still hasn’t stopped staring at the pictures. 

“Never seen the sea before?” He takes a guess. 

“Hm?” Renjun turns around quickly, eyebrows drawn up in confusion. “I have?” 

“Oh, okay.” He’s not really in the right mindset to ask how a nymph who lives very much inland ever got to see the coast, so he just motions to the sketchbooks. “If you wanted to take a look, then.” 

Renjun nods, movements a little jerky for some reason and shuffles over to perch on the edge of Donghyuck’s bed. He gingerly picks up the first one and runs a hand over the gold imprints on its cover. “That’s really pretty.” He notes. 

Donghyuck hasn’t really heard Renjun point out the aesthetic of anything, mostly too busy with things like dying or glaring at Jaemin or trying to understand how the fridge works. He realizes something, then. 

“Wait. How do you know about the sketchbooks anyway?” 

Renjun looks up and blinks. “You told me about them?” When Donghyuck furrows his eyebrows in confusion, he tacks on: “When you told me about everything, over coffee.” 

It’s on Donghyuck to blink at the other now. “...Jeno?” 

“Oh!” A sheepish grin makes its way onto his face. “Yeah. Sorry, I should have led with that—“ 

“No, you’re fine!” Donghyuck hurries to reassure him. “I should have realized, usually I always know, if it's you—“ 

They both trail off into a weirdly charged kind of silence, looking at each other. Donghyuck doesn’t like the way his face feels hot. 

“So, your grandma’s drawings…” Jeno gestures to the books on his lap. 

“Yes.” Donghyuck turns to them as well. “Right.” 

When he forces himself to focus back on the green leather, he thinks he sees a brilliant small smile on Jeno’s face, but it might just as well have been the way the light is filtering through the window. 

He loses himself in the thought for a second. Perhaps it’s his mind taking a deep breath, closing its figurative eyes to all the thoughts and all the noise he just left behind in the living room and allowing him to be quiet, calm, nothing more than he knows to expect from the confines of his own self. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s sitting there, staring at little particles of dust floating around the room, the only noise his own and Jeno’s breathing and the rustle of a page when Jeno turns it. 

A soft gasp brings him back to reality. 

He knows the page Jeno is looking at when he turns back to him, could probably redraw it from memory, had he been gifted with the artistic skill. Most of his grandmother’s sketches are vague, more shapes than features, more colours than expressions, but this one page holds a distinct face, lines and colours culminating in a stare that seems to pierce through paper and pigment and right into the very soul of whoever is looking at it. Most notes in the sketchbook are explanations, a kind of guide. This one is different. It reads like poetry, like something that should be holy, should be preserved: _All life comes from nothing, comes from everything, comes from you, and me, and them, and everyone and no one. Exisiting and being, loving and letting go, leaving and dying. A body born from the desire to be everything, out of nothing, out of you._

Donghyuck hasn’t looked at the drawings in a long time, and seeing this particular portrait again now is nearly as impressive as it was the very first time he saw it, sitting on his father’s lap all those years ago. The words are still as confusing as they had been then, maybe even more so.

Jeno is tracing the soft lines framing the face slowly, finger hovering a breath above the page as if he’s scared an actual touch could destroy the delicacy of it all. 

When Donghyuck shifts his attention to Jeno’s face he has to suppress a gasp of his own. The look in his eyes is nothing he’s ever seen on him before, something heavy yet incredibly soft at the same time, and it’s still there in full force when he turns to Donghyuck. The drawing’s gaze has pierced his soul many times, Jeno’s suckerpunches right into his chest. 

For a moment, he can’t speak, can only look and hope Jeno doesn’t notice the way his eyes keep drifting off to his mouth, curled into a gentle smile. He wants to slam his head against the wall or kiss Jeno senseless or run outside and take a quick dive in the Nakamoto’s swimming pool next door, and he really can’t tell which option will win until his mouth grows a mind of its own and decides, against all odd, to be reasonable. 

“Grandma was quite the artist.” He says and Jeno breathes out a laugh. 

“Yeah, I can see that.” He looks down at the drawing again, for only a moment, before Donghyuck has to deal with the full force of how in love he is again and— _Love._. He really is in love with Jeno. 

It’s another suckerpunch to his chest and now he definitely wants to jump into the Nakamoto’s pool. He’s sure Yuta’s parents will understand, he’s their son’s best friend’s brother, he’s basically family, and he’s in a crisis, one that can only be solved by a full-on belly flop into their pool. 

He nearly misses it when Jeno starts talking again. “Thank you.” 

It’s clear even to Donghyuck’s mind, otherwise occupied, that he’s referring back to what they left in the living room, to Renjun and all that Donghyuck is doing to help him. For a second he wants to tell him precisely what he’s been thinking about, that he’s not doing anything and couldn’t, even if he wants to. His mouth still has a mind of its own, though. 

“You really don’t need to thank me.” He waves it off. “This is Renjun’s life on the line, and if—” 

Jeno is shaking his head. “That’s not what I mean.” He says, then pauses. “That’s important, of course, I don’t mean that it’s— Renjun is important, but— God, let’s not tell him I said that.” He laughs to himself for just a second, before his eyes are back on Donghyuck’s. Another suckerpunch. Donghyuck wonders how many more his poor heart can take. 

“I meant: Thank you, for showing me all of this, for explaining.” He gestures to the book in his lap. “It’s all terrifying, and apart from that, it feels like so much more than I should get to be a part of, so… Thanks.” 

His first instinct is to tell Jeno that he deserves to be part of everything that he should ever want to be part of, but that’s dramatic. The second is to confess his undying love right then and there, but that’s just not something you can reply casually to something like this. The third is to finally explain that all this is as little Donghyuck’s place as it is Jeno’s. And that is it, isn’t it? The perfect, if late moment to finally come clean, clear his conscious. It doesn’t seem so grave, in that moment, with the way Jeno is looking at him, and the way the light filters in, and the soft colours on the open page before them. 

“Listen, I actually—” He begins, but of course, fate isn’t on his side. When is it ever?

Jeno goes rigid, just for the tiniest fragment of a second, and suddenly, the warmth in his eyes is gone, replaced by something else. Someone else.

“I can’t take this anymore.” Renjun huffs. “It’s infuriating!”

“I—” Donghyuck’s brain takes a second too long to recalibrate. “What?” 

Renjun seems downright desperate. “I ask this with all the seriousness of my current situation and with all the social expertise I have gathered in my time among you people,” He stresses, fixing Donghyuck with a look, leaning in and gripping a hold onto his arms. “Can you _please_ just kiss him?” 

Dongyhyuck splutters. “I— What?” He says again. Out of all the things Renjun could have said, this had to be the one he least expected, the one thing he hadn’t even considered. 

“That’s what your kind does, isn’t it? To show affection? Kiss, or hold hands, or hug? Jaemin tried hugging me the other day, it has to have something to do with it.” He tightens his grip on Donghyuck’s arms. “ _Please_ do it.”

What Donghyuck wants to do is release a very long very unintelligent noise. Or jump in the Nakamoto’s pool, still a very intriguing option. What he goes with is: “Why?” 

“Do you know how frustrating it is, to witness all of… _this_?” He gestures wild between them. “I’ll tell you: Very. It’s distracting, for both of you, and just downright weird to be a part of. Which, yes, I am! Show a little consideration for innocent bystanders that have nothing to do with complicated romantic human emotions.” 

They blink at each other for a long moment, before Donghyuck says, mirroring the urgency in Renjun’s tone: “I’m not going to do that.” 

“Why not?” Renjun immediately shoots back. 

They blink some more, and then, suddenly, the reality of the situation creeps up on Donghyuck. 

With a whine he lets himself fall back onto his bed, grabbing a plushie at random and hiding his face behind it. It’s the Bulbasaur one, Karen’s preferred napping spot. He realises this when he takes a breath and promptly chokes on cat hair, forcing him to lower the plushie and glance up at Renjun. 

“Does he know about this?” He asks. 

“What does that matter?” Renjun gives back. “Would it speed things up? Maybe we should tell him, we’ll tell him right now—” 

“No!” Donghyuck interrupts him, sitting upright. He’s gripping the plushie way too tightly. Karen would be so mad at him if she was here. “We’re not telling him.” 

Renjun scowls. “Why not?” He asks again. 

“It’s— It’s not that easy, okay? This is a very complicated matter, for humans.” 

“It really doesn’t seem like one.” Renjun retorts. “He smiles at you more than he smiles at anyone else, you look at him as if he hung the stars in the sky.” His forehead scrunches up for a second. “What did Yukhei say the other day? Ah, yes: ‘What’s not clicking?’ Am I interpreting something wrong here?”

“No.” Donghyuck admits, and it surprises himself. “But, like I said, it’s very complicated. And we need to focus on helping you.” 

Renjun nods. “I just think you could do that better if this was out of the way.” 

“It’s complicated.” Donghyuck repeats for a third time, not entirely sure how to explain it without laying bare every romantic thought he’s ever had about Jeno. Briefly he wonders if it would be easier if Renjun was in _his_ head, if he could simply show him the sheer magnitude of emotion he felt. It reminds him of something else. 

“Also I don’t think I should do any of the things you just suggested, while you are in there too. You think this is uncomfortable for you now, when I’m just looking at him? What do you think it would be like if I’d actually act on this?” 

Renjun thinks about this for a long moment. Then he shudders. 

“Fine.” He sighs. “But please remember how annoying you are, the next time you feel like doing this.” He emphasises _’doing this’_ with another generous gesture, encompassing them, before he gathers the sketchbooks in his arms and stands up in one smooth motion. “We need to get back to work.” He announces. 

“Yeah.” Donghyuck nods. His gaze falls to his hands, still gripping onto poor Bulbasaur way too tightly. “You go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute.” 

Renjun nods curtly, and leaves, just like that, like he hasn’t confronted Donghyuck with every heavy emotion he only just discovered he has. 

He sighs deeply, closing his eyes. 

One day, he’s going to have to deal with all of this, but right now there’s a million things more important. Right now, a deep breath and his Pokémon plushies are all that he has, and that has to be enough. 

He’s just about to get up and go back to everyone else, when his phone chimes. 

**Unknown Number**

_Donghyuck,  
I’m in town until next Monday. I’d love to see you, it’s been way too long.   
Please call me!  
Love, Mom_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to call this a filler chapter because its only really one scene but it has KIND OF important stuff so?? idk tbh but it's here, is what's important! 
> 
> i finally made an outline for the rest of this fic, there'll be two more chapters if everything goes to plan!! exciting, exciting!!
> 
> im so unbearably bored over break, PLEASE talk to me [on cc](http://www.curiouscat.me/fullstar) about ships or fics or nct or your day or sth im begging you


	5. Chapter 5

Donghyuck feels like all the things he’s keeping from everyone are starting to tower over his head. Renjun doesn’t know he doesn’t have the gift, his family don’t know that he hasn’t told Renjun, Jeno doesn’t know about any ulterior motives Donghyuck has, the depths of which he only discovered himself recently, none of them know about the text his mother sent him and the way it’s been preoccupying his every thought. 

Jaemin on the other hand, seems to know everything. 

“Dude,” He says in their Friday art class. “Do you know who my dad met at the grocery store yesterday?” 

The meaningful look in Jaemin’s eyes is all it takes for Donghyuck to tell him all about the text. And because he’s on a roll and Miss Kang hasn’t called them out for talking in class yet, he keeps going, he spills all about Jeno, and his family, and his feelings, and everything Jaemin didn’t sign up for when he sat down next to Donghyuck in kindergarten and said “I like your band-aid, we’re best friends now.” 

When Donghyuck finally shuts up, the rest of their class is focussed on work, and he realises that Miss Kang is staring them down from the front of the room. Kim Hyunjin is swiping a brush across her paper next to him, and it leaves a line of soft forest green watercolour. It reminds Donghyuck of his grandmother’s sketches. He looks away. 

Jaemin busies himself with getting both of their supplies out on the table for a moment. 

“This is a lot to unpack.” He states then, when Miss Kang has shifted her attention away from them. 

“Don’t even try to start unpacking it,” Donghyuck all but whines, staring miserably at the tip of a brush. “It’s not worth it. Believe me, I’ve been trying.” 

“I know.” Jaemin gives back matter-of-factly, because of course he does. “You’ve been very distracted these days.” 

Donghyuck huffs out a sigh. 

When Taeyong came home over the weekend, managing to catch his siblings up on college while simultaneously reorganising the entire kitchen and fussing about Renjun, Donghyuck had only been able to appreciate it halfheartedly. It was distracting, to make sure Taeyong didn’t steer the conversation towards Donghyuck’s lack of powers, and distracting to see Renjun be way more comfortable around Taeyong than he’d been around anyone else, watch him smile and force himself not to think about how different it was from Jeno’s laugh. It was hard to change the subject when Renjun had forced him to explain the workings of his phone to him, telling him about the unread text message, blinking scathing and red next to the app’s icon. Donghyuck had been so distracted and caught up in his head that even the news that Taeyong couldn’t find anything to help Renjun’s tree didn’t reach him as particularly devastating. It was just another pebble added to the ever-growing avalanche of problems that would no doubt crush him once he stopped running away from it. 

Jaemin seems to think that being crushed and dying a painful undignified death is the right way to go. 

“Just deal with one thing at a time,” He said, eyes focused on the watery smears of pink and purple in front of him. “Compartmentalise.” 

“You have to realise that that’s the shittiest advice you ever gave me. You have to be aware of that.” 

“The usefulness of advice lies in the eyes of the beholder,” Jaemin chirps. 

And that is that conversation, because there is only so much soul digging Donghyuck will allow himself in Miss Kang’s art class. He’s set on ignoring Jaemin’s words altogether, settling for the fact that at least he got to rant about everything and move on with his life, but they stay with him. 

They are a crescendo in his head, remaining on the forefront of his thoughts as he sits down in Jeno’s car and attempts to listen to the story Jeno is telling him on the way to his house, as Jeno bids him goodbye when they arrive, reminding him that he’ll be back in a few hours to finalise something Saerom suggested a few days ago, as he sits down with his father for lunch, as he lets Karen climb up and down his arm while he does his homework. 

And then he’s out of people to talk to, and out of homework to do and out of things to even attempt to distract himself. 

_”Just deal with one thing at a time.”_ Jaemin had said. 

He picks up his phone and clicks on the glaring red notification that has been telling him about his mother’s text message for a small eternity now. He reads it again. He scans the few words countless times, trying to convince himself it’s a shitty idea, trying to remind himself of everything that happened all these years ago. 

It doesn’t quite work. He starts typing. 

*** 

Saerom’s idea is so crazy that it might just work. 

“It’s gonna be the full moon this weekend,” She says, and it seems very important, the way she glances at all of them one by one after she does. 

“So what does that mean?” Jaemin prompts after no one reacts. 

“Everything your kind would call even remotely ‘magic’ is going to be strongest under the full moon,” Renjun explains. His voice is a little weak and a little muffled. 

About an hour earlier, Jaemin and Renjun had arrived at the usual time, Saerom getting home way later on weekdays. But almost immediately after stepping over the threshold, Renjun had fallen to the hallway carpet, Jeno’s body shuddering through the waves of Renjun’s pain. While Jaemin had heaved them to the living room, Donghyuck had called Saerom and made her come home early. They didn’t have any time to lose, he’d yelled at her. It had been the third seizure that happened that week. 

Renjun is still in the same position he was in when Donghyuck had joined them in the living room, rolled up on the couch, his head on a pillow in Jaemin’s lap. Jeno’s face is still sickly pale, and the fact that Renjun hasn’t attempted to get up is probably equal parts Jaemin not letting him and him not having the strength to. Donghyuck’s heart stings a little every time he looks their way. 

“Exactly,” Saerom nods. “The moon amplifies it all.” 

Their father nods in understanding. “So it will amplify the clearing,” He finishes. 

“This weekend is our best shot at finding it,” Saerom adds. “But we need to prepare. There’s not a lot of references in Grandma’s notes about where and how she found it, but we still should go through everything and collect the things that might help us.” 

The look that she throws all of them then is something more than hopeful, something confident and sure of herself. Donghyuck knows it all too well, it’s something Jaemin calls the Lees’ Fight Face. 

They all get to work immediately. 

He doesn’t know how long they all sit in silence, the only noise being Karen’s mewl once in a while, and Jaemin and Renjun quietly whispering on the couch. 

When he looks over, the afternoon sun is close to disappearing over the neighbourhood’s roofs. Jaemin has apparently permitted Renjun to move, at least a little bit. He is still curled in on himself, but now leaning against Jaemin’s shoulder, both of them focussed on books in their laps. Or so Donghyuck thought, because as his gaze stays on Jeno’s face, trying to gauge if Renjun is feeling better, he’s met with eyes just a little too sharp for their colour. Renjun pulls up an eyebrow, and Donghyuck simply mirrors the gesture. He’s not sure what Renjun reads out of their short exchange, he’s not even sure what he intended to be read out of it, but the next thing Renjun does is roll his eyes, and sigh a little. 

His eyes close then, and when they open again, something about the gaze in them has changed. Donghyuck can’t help the small smile that curls his lips upward as Jeno grins at him and makes to stand up. Jaemin throws him a sharp glance, but Jeno is already on his feet, giving back an apologetic shrug. 

“You okay?” Donghyuck asks quietly, as Jeno settles next to him where he’s sitting on the floor, leaning against an armchair stacked high with books. 

“A little tired,” Jeno allows, as Karen attempts to crawl into his lap at a speed that shouldn’t be possible for a cat as small as she is. 

When Donghyuck narrows his eyes, Jeno holds up is hands with a small laugh. “Otherwise I’m entirely fine, though, promise!” 

“Okay.” Donghyuck keeps his eyes narrowed on him for a moment longer, before focusing back on the notebook he was reading. “You should take a nap, probably.” 

“Yeah, probably,” Jeno agrees cheerfully, and without and preamble, he lets his head fall into the crook of Donghyuck’s neck. Donghyuck tenses as Jeno shuffles closer, attempting to stammer out quiet protest, but Jeno shushes him. “I’m trying to take a nap,” He reminds him, and Donghyuck can feel his smile against his skin. 

He keeps himself from shuddering and tries to focus back on the notebook, but not before he catches Jaemin throwing them a meaningful glance. He doesn’t even want to know if Saerom or his father had taken note of it, and quickly lowers his gaze, busying himself with plucking Karen out of Jeno’s lap and setting her down on the other side of his own, until his heart rate is back to normal. _One thing at a time_ he reminds himself. 

*** 

It’s about an hour after dinner, when Jaemin and Jeno have left and Donghyuck and his family are putting all the notebooks back on their shelves, that his phone chimes with a text. He hates the way his nerves double when he unlocks it and sees who sent it. _’This isn’t excitement,’_ he tells himself. _’This is misguided hatred.’_

And yet, he finds himself agreeing to the dinner plans his mother had sent him, worded like she’s meeting with a colleague for work, like there is business matters that need to be discussed rather than years of absence. 

That night, sleep can’t seem to find and keep him, as he tosses and turns and keeps waking from dreams, childhood memories turned spoilt by none other than the woman who he’s supposed to be meeting this Saturday night. 

“You look like hell,” Jaemin greets him when he meets Jeno and him in front of the school gates. 

“That’s what I told him too!” Jeno nods with a grin. 

It had become a habit, Jeno driving him to school even though it’s not on his way and Donghyuck could just as well walk. It’s a nice habit, Donghyuck thinks, because for a little while every morning, they can pretend Jeno isn’t possessed by his plum tree, and their biggest problem is the way their opinions on Hozier’s new album differ. (Donghyuck thinks it’s art, Jeno thinks it’s boring and Donghyuck calls him heterosexual for it. Jeno threatens to kick him out of his car. The next day, Jeno begrudgingly tells him that Renjun forced him to listen to the entire album on repeat for the rest of the day, and it’s actually quite good. When Donghyuck gives him a wide grin, he thinks he imagines a slight dust of pink on Jeno’s cheeks.) 

“Both of you can fuck off,” Donghyuck grumbles and walks straight past them into the building, not paying them any more attention. 

It doesn’t do much, because they follow him anyways, Jeno telling Jaemin about how Renjun had developed a strange affinity to ASMR, making Jeno listen to it while he’s doing homework, and that somehow develops into ten other conversations before they even get to Donghyuck’s locker. For a moment there, Donghyuck takes a deep breath and allows himself another few moments of what is usually just restricted to the ride to school: normalcy, the giddy feeling he gets when he hears Jeno crack up in the middle of a sentence and the warmth that spreads within him when he sees the two of them get along so well. It could be thrilling in a whole different, non-magical, non-dangerous way, just walking through the halls, rolling his eyes at his best friend and his crush, basking in the glory of his perfectly normal teenage years. 

But even his hypothetical normalcy is shattered, Alternate-Universe-Donghyuck suffering from a heart attack at the precise moment that this universe’s Donghyuck closes his locker and turns around just as Mark Lee and Wong Yukhei halt right beside him. 

Now, when they started high school, Donghyuck had already accepted that being in love with Jeno was something he would have to deal with from a distance. Jeno joined the soccer team, received tons of letters on Valentine’s day, by the end of freshman year the whole grade knew his name. He and Donghyuck resided in different orbits. 

To say that Mark and Yukhei are in different orbits than him, would be an insulting understatement. The two of them don’t revolve around anything, they are twin stars themselves, pulling in a plethora of orbits. Without them, the whole universe that is their high school would probably collapse. Mark has been elected student body president by their sophomore year and has lead the school community, as well as the debate club into a bright bright future, all while wearing the same ridiculous letterman jacket every member of Jeno’s soccer team has. Yukhei had assumed captaincy of said soccer team this year, after Kim Jungwoo graduated in summer, and he somehow managed to be on about five other sports teams as well, though Donghyuck can’t even begin to guess which ones it are this year. 

The whole school know who they are, the faculty love them, parents want their kids to be just a little more like them— which goes to say, they have no business standing in front of Donghyuck’s locker, normally. 

“Normal” of course, is a word that had its meaning shattered at the precise moment a plant-possessed Lee Jeno had stepped foot into Donghyuck’s living room and proclaimed that he was dying. Jeno is currently in the midst of a complicated looking handshake with Yukhei, while Jaemin stares in unabashed awe and Mark turns his thousand dollar smile Donghyuck’s way. 

“Hey, where’s your cat?” 

Donghyuck blinks. “My— My cat?” 

“Yeah, the little grey one.” 

“Karen,” Jeno helpfully supplies from the sidelines, as if Donghyuck has other cats that he brings to school sometimes. 

“I’m Karen’s biggest fan,” Yukhei adds, and he looks very serious about this statement. 

“She’s staying with my sister today,” Donghyuck says, slowly. 

Mark nods. “Cool.” 

“Tell her I love her,” Yukhei says with a wide smile. 

“Will do.” Donghyuck gives back, like it’s a normal thing to ask and a normal thing to agree to and a normal conversation to have with the guy who held the record for most anonymous love letters received in junior year. 

Mark looks like he wants to say something else but the bell interrupts him. “Shit, I gotta blast. Council meeting.” He gestures down the hallway and goes to sprint off, but halts, turning back to Donghyuck and Jaemin specifically. “You guys are gonna be there for the fundraiser right? It’s a whole thing, for the animal shelter across town? Really cool, it’ll be fun, you’ll love it!” He rushes out, before finally disappearing around a corner in lightspeed. 

Yukhei stays around for a moment longer, mentioning something about soccer practice to Jeno and then he’s gone too. Donghyuck might as well believe he imagined the whole thing, if it weren’t for Jaemin huffing out a laugh. “I can’t believe _Mark Lee_ invited us to hang out at his fundraiser.” 

Jeno pulls a face. “Don’t say his full name like he’s some kind of celebrity.” 

“Oh, but Jeno, he is,” Jaemin insists, holding a finger up importantly. 

“Two days ago, he asked me if scrambled eggs are vegan.” 

Jaemin retorts something, and Jeno groans, and Donghyuck laughs and he thinks that normal feels pretty good. 

*** 

**Jaemin**

_i hope all three of you are planning to get a good night’s rest today, gentlemen_

_it’s a big day tomorrow!!_

 

 **Jeno**

_renjun wants me to remind you that he doesn’t sleep_

_but i definitely will, like a baby ^^_

 

The text messages light up his screen, just before he locks it and puts his phone into his pocket for good. The glass doors of the restaurant he’s standing in front of loom over him, the lights reflecting against them is warm orange but at the moment it seems like flames and destruction to him. 

Renjun had insisted on using the better part of their day on research, even going as far as convincing Saerom to stay home from her shift and keeping Taeyong from his nap as soon as he stepped through the front door. They had gone through every little thing they’d found until then, checking and discussing and checking again that the words added up to something that would help them. Only when Renjun had deemed it all _”As foolproof as it gets”_ had he relaxed somewhat and let Jeno take over. It was much easier to convince Jeno to go home a little early than it was Renjun, and Jaemin wasn’t long to follow. Taeyong had already fallen asleep in the armchair by then, his fuzzy blanket covering his face entirely, and Saerom had disappeared in her room without much explanation. Donghyuck’s father was still holed up at work, took a late shift, _”To keep busy”_. 

It had been easier than Donghyuck anticipated, sneaking out without anyone noticing. 

The entire bus ride, he felt bad, terrible even. No matter how much he convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, not telling anyone what he is up to, his thoughts keep circling back to all the notes they compiled, to questions that are still left unanswered, to the looming feeling that he is wasting time, is wasting _Renjun’s_ time by acting on his own childish feelings. _Selfish_ , a voice echoed in his head, over and over again, every time the bus took a turn and brought him closer to his destination. _Delusional_ , another joined as he got off the bus, his heart lurching traitorously in his chest as the restaurant came into view. 

And now he is standing in front of flaming glass, and he is frozen. 

“This is fine,” He mumbles to himself. “You will be fine. This is for closure, you can leave any time.” 

A hand weighs down on his shoulder suddenly. He opens his eyes. 

“Donghyuck,” His mother says, only that, only his name, and he has to look down at her because he grew since he was nine. There’s lines on her face he doesn’t recognize, and he’s not sure if it’s the time they spent apart or if they simply weren’t there when he last saw her. Her hair is a different shade than it was back then. Her eyes are the same. “Hi, baby,” She says. Her voice is the same. 

Donghyuck feels like he’s drowning. 

“Shall we go in, then?” She asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer, just guides him in the direction of the glass doors, until the flames swallow them whole and Donghyuck thinks he’s still burning by the time they sit down. 

His mother is talking about how she is back in town for work, about a meeting she had this morning. “It went really well,” She informs him with a small smile, as she looks down at the menu and Donghyuck is burning. 

He wants to tell her about it. He wants her to know that she is the reason for the flames that lick at his insides, for the ashes that cloud his mind and for the black painful singes on his heart. He wants her to know about the way Saerom cried every night, for a week. He wants her to know about the broken mirror in Taeyong’s room, about the cut Taeyong got cleaning it up and about the bright orange bandaid Donghyuck put on it, because their mother wasn’t there to do it. He wants to tell her about how tired his father was, all the time, how worn out and sad he was but how he never even for a second let his children believe that they were the reason, or that he didn’t love them. 

He wants to yell out all of this, for her to hear, for the waiter that smiles at them as he takes their order to hear, for himself. 

Their food arrives, and he hasn’t said a single word yet, has only listened. He is burning and he feels like he’s about to explode. 

And then, she finally looks at him. She looks at him and she smiles, smiles like she did when he was nine and she told him that she’d always be on his side, him and her against the rest of the world. She smiles and suddenly he can’t feel the flames anymore. 

“So, tell me about you. What has been going on with you?” She says. Her eyes are still the same. Her voice is still the same. She used to sing him to sleep. It’s a normal question, a normal dinner, a normal night. Beyond those glass doors, beyond the flames, there’s everything Donghyuck’s life is, there is magic and the way he can’t attain it, there is uncertainty and fear and so many things that Donghyuck can never be. Inside, right here, there’s just him and a woman who promised to love him unconditionally, who was supposed to do just that, and a question that allows him to make his life what he wants it to be. For a moment, with the light orange and blazing, with bubbles rising slowly in his mother’s glass of champagne, with her voice and her smile, he can be normal. 

He clears his throat, has to talk around ashes and smoke as he says: “Well, chemistry is kicking my ass.” 

And the way his mother chuckles is normal. He lets it happen. He ignores the flames. 

*** 

When they step out of the restaurant, a cool breeze hits Donghyuck’s face. It makes him shiver, after the warmth inside and momentarily he pulls up his shoulders. 

He’s not quite sure what time it is, hasn’t dared to get out his phone and check out of the selfish knowledge that he would see Jeno’s and Jaemin’s texts right there at the top of his notifications. He wanted to pretend, just for tonight. 

Pretending had been easy. He told his mother about school, told her about Jaemin, even told her about Karen at some point. She smiled, and nodded, and she didn’t ask how he got Karen when he didn’t mention it, and she didn’t ask for Saerom’s reaction either. A while later, it felt like hours had passed, she set down her glass of champagne, and she smiled again, and she asked about _girls_ and for a moment there, Donghyuck had felt like burning again, but it was the normal kind, the kind that didn’t have anything to do with magic. He told her about Jeno, shortly, quietly, and she still smiled, and nodded. He didn’t say a word about Renjun. 

Now the breeze is blowing into Donghyuck’s face and it’s not icy, it’s not violent, but it’s a reminder that normalcy isn’t something that can last, not for Donghyuck. 

His mother lays a hand on his arm. Her skin is warm on his. 

“You didn’t tell your father about this, did you?” She asks. For a moment he thinks she is worried, but then he realises that she knows he didn’t. He just shortly shakes his head, and she nods, because she knew. It’s quiet for a moment. Donghyuck knows what to expect next: Another goodbye, another harsh reminder that normalcy can only exist behind glass doors for a night, inside a car for a few minutes, in front of his locker for a moment. 

“I’ve been thinking, Donghyuck,” She says. It seems significantly more real than anything she’s said all night, he notes. “I miss you. And I’ve been thinking, because I have to leave on Monday, you know that.” 

He nods. He does know. He braces himself for the goodbye. It doesn’t hurt, he realises. At least it’s not just another note on his bedside table. 

“You’re graduating this summer, going off to college, right?” 

He nods again. The future seems like something so far away when you have magic and life and death to worry about. Another breeze hits his face, it’s not as cold anymore. He wonders what time it is. 

“I’m planning to move into a bigger place next month,” His mother continues. “There’s a lot of really good colleges in the city, Donghyuck. It’s a good neighbourhood.” 

He goes to nod again, but freezes midway through and just looks at her. 

“Come live with me,” She says finally. And after a short moment she adds: “You deserve a normal life. Is that not what you want?” 

An just like that, just like it’s been only gathering momentum, like the spark had just taken a moment to catch, Donghyuck burns, blazes, flames engulf his words, his eyes prickle. 

His voice trembles when he hisses: “Who do you think you are?” 

She takes her hand from his arm, quickly, as if she’s been burnt. Donghyuck hopes it hurt. 

“Duckie—“ She starts but he cuts her off. 

“You don’t get to call me that,” He spits. “Not anymore.” 

“I know I hurt you when I left you, but—“ 

“You hurt _us_!” He yells. “You left _us_!” 

And then it all spills out. The tears he wiped from Saerom’s cheeks, the shards he picked up from Taeyong’s floor, the bags under his father’s eyes. The nights he spent awake, waiting. 

“You made a promise, and you broke it. You made a decision and you went back on it. And now you expect me to forget all of that and leave behind everything, just like you?” He quieted down while he talked, but his words are still charred at the edges. “I’m not like you. I’m not going to break their hearts like you did, like you broke mine as well.” 

She doesn’t reply for a moment. When she does, it’s like everything she has said the entire night. Leaving out the obvious, dancing around the rips in the fabric that she had cut herself, with a jagged blade, ignoring what’s right there. “You came here.” She says, as if that changes anything about Donghyuck’s words. 

“I was nine,” He gives back, nothing more than a whisper. “I was a child that missed his Mom, and maybe I still am.” 

“So, come with me,” She repeats and it is so absurd that Donghyuck has to laugh, an ugly, torn up sound fighting its way out of his throat. 

His own voice echoes in his head. _You will be fine. This is for closure, you can leave any time._

The flames die down, gradually, simmering to an orange glow. It reminds Donghyuck of nights he spent in front of the fireplace, snuggled in between Taeyong and Saerom, listening to their father telling them about magic and about love. It reminds him of everything his mother didn’t want. A life that isn’t normal, isn’t what she thinks he deserves. 

He squares his shoulders. He buries his hands in his pockets. He looks into her eyes. They hadn’t changed. 

“Goodbye, Mom.” He says. He smiles. 

He turns around, and he doesn’t look back, not even when the nerves finally get to him after a few steps and his shoulders start shaking a little bit and his hands clench to fists in his pockets. He thinks he only breathes when he finally sits down on the bus back home. 

He gets out his phone and he unlocks it. It’s much later than he thought, is what he notes first. 

The next thing is that Jeno’s and Jaemin’s text chain isn’t at the top of his notifications anymore. 

The next are the missed calls. His fingers start trembling again. He scrolls down quickly, from the most recent messages to the oldest ones, from about an hour ago. 

 

 **Jaemin**

_where the fuck are you_

 

 **Saerom**

_please pick up, he needs you_

 

 **Dad**

_Jeno and Renjun are here. Call as soon as you see this._

 

 **Taeyong**

_need to talk to you, where are you? have a strange feeling about renjun_

 

 **Jeno**

_pledase pick up i dotn kkow whats happeningg_

_hyuck im scared_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a hot minute, sorry for that! 
> 
> actually the scene with donghyuck's mom is one of my favourite things i've ever written, i can't quite say why but i'm really proud of it hehe. anyways, i hope you liked the chapter!! it gets really dramatic in the next one and then we're, like, DONE!! unbelievable, i know, i take ages to finish fics. 
> 
> i really wanna use my writing twitter more, and i'd love to hear all your thoughts on this or ideas for other fics or just any thought you have on anything!! i really appreciate everyone who reads my stuff so much, please be my friend uwu 
> 
> [twt](http://www.twitter.com/lilaliacs) | [cc](http://www.curiouscat.me/fullstar)


	6. Chapter 6

Taeyong had been attuned to Renjun from the start. When he first came by, he had taken one look at Jeno and had startled. “Oh,” he’d said. “Oh, I see.” 

When he’d been over in the weeks to follow, he stayed close to Renjun, would ask way too many questions, offer way too many drinks. “This is nothing that ever happened before,” He told Donghyuck one night after everyone had left. “Nothing like this was ever documented. It shouldn’t be possible. I’m just worried for them.” 

Donghyuck had sighed, and nodded, because they all were worried, they all did their best to help, Taeyong just had better instincts for what they were actually helping with than the rest of them. 

_You didn’t do your best,_ a voice in Donghyuck’s head whispers menacingly as he jumps out of the bus and takes off in the direction of his house. His heart is beating loud in his throat, his breath comes out in bursts, his insides feel too loud for the silence of the sleepy suburban neighbourhood he’s running through. _You ignored them. You wanted to ignore them, you wanted them gone._

Deep down, he knows that it’s not true, that he’s done the opposite, that tonight, looking at his mother for the first time since she denied his family, he made the final decision to not ignore any part of them ever again, that no one deserves even a sliver of neglect from someone they call family. Deeper down he knows that he still did the wrong thing, that he should have been there. He promised. 

He skids to a stop in front of his house. His hand is shaking when he fumbles with his keys, he drops them, curses. When they’re back in his hands, the door in front of him swings open, his brother looking at him, his eyes dark and serious. He’d texted Donghyuck that he’d had a _strange feeling_. He should have been there. “Living room,” is all Taeyong says before he’s gone again, the door open behind him. 

The scene in the living room could be something mundane, something it’s been a lot of times the past few weeks, but slightly off, slightly pulled too taut, everything distorted by something _wrong_. His family is scattered around the room, Jaemin is tucked on the floor right by one end of the couch, Donghyuck’s father beside him, talking lowly below his breath. Taeyong is standing a few feet away, his hair a mess from running his hands through them, his eyes with the same dark look in them as before. Saerom is just stepping in from the kitchen, holding a glass of water, her hand shaking badly when she sets it down on the coffee table. 

Donghyuck stumbles a few steps further, Jaemin and his father turn to look at him, and they give him a clear view of the couch. 

Donghyuck has never seen someone dying. He’d been too young when his grandmother died to have any memories of her condition worsening, and he steered clear of hospitals. Movies were unrealistic, for the most part. Nothing he’s ever seen on a screen could have prepared him for this. 

Jeno’s face is devoid of any colour, his skin pale and gaunt. His hair is falling over his eyes where they are screwed shut in pain, wet with sweat and water from a cloth Donghyuck’s father is pressing to the side of his face at this moment. His chest is rising rapidly, the movement looking forced, looking like it requires more energy than it brings. One of Jeno’s hands is clawed into a cushion, the other around Jaemin’s fingers, knuckles standing out white against already pale skin. 

Saerom is next to Donghyuck all of a sudden. “He’s been like this ever since he got here,” she explains quietly. “It’s not stopping.” 

“It’s getting worse,” Donghyuck’s father adds. His voice is rough, worry seeping through every word. 

Donghyuck feels frozen. His tongue feels foreign in his mouth when he tries to shape it around words. “Renjun stopped it before,” He says, barely above a whisper. “Why isn’t he stopping it?”

“He can’t,” Taeyong gives back. “I tried to help him, but he can’t, he— It’s too strong.” 

Donghyuck doesn’t feel himself move until he’s kneeling beside Jaemin on the ground. Nobody says anything as he gently takes the cloth from his father’s hand and resumes what he’d been doing. 

The only sound in the room is laboured breathing, so even though Jaemin’s words are only meant for Donghyuck, they carry. “It’s killing him,” He says, voice rough. 

He blinks at Jeno’s face, then at Jaemin and back. A small voice in his mind hopes that what Jaemin is talking about is just a reminder, just another mention of what they already knew, of Renjun’s condition. It quiets down when Jaemin adds: “Jeno. Renjun can’t stop it and it’s killing Jeno.” 

Donghyuck feels a little breathless when he asks: “Can he not let him go?” 

Taeyong makes a noise then, a scoff, but sadder, a hum but entirely hopeless. “He’s refusing to do that.” 

“Renjun is refusing—?” Donghyuck starts, but Taeyong shakes his head. “Jeno isn’t letting him go.” And that makes so much sense that it knocks the air out of Donghyuck’s lungs all over again. “He is convinced that Renjun has no time left, and will die immediately if they disconnect.” Taeyong adds. 

“He said it would basically be murder,” Saerom murmured under her breath. 

Donghyuck looks at her for a moment, at the way she’s holding Karen close to her chest. He hadn’t realised that she’d picked her up. He turns back to Taeyong. “Would it be?” 

Taeyong’s eyes are still focussed on Jeno, his forehead still creased in a worried scowl. “I don’t know,” He admits. It carries in the silence of the room, echoes from the bookshelves. 

It’s still floating around when Donghyuck looks back down at the harsh lines on Jeno’s face, carved by pain that is as much Renjun’s as it is his right now. He has half a mind to try and talk to him, try to convince him to let Renjun go despite all odds. It would be no use, only a waste of time, and time is something they’re running out of. Donghyuck runs his thumb over the side of Jeno’s face and his skin feels cold. With a deep breath he leans back onto his feet and faces his family. 

“We need to find the clearing,” He says with resolve. “Tonight.” 

***

He feels like he’s running on autopilot from there on out. Everyone is talking, adding things, throwing in last minute ideas, reminders, but it all reduces to a hum at the back of Donghyuck’s mind as he prepares for something so uncertain there couldn’t be any actual preparation. Only when he walks back into the living room, does he stop to think. 

Saerom is sitting on the ground next to Jeno now, talking too softly for Donghyuck to hear. His father and Taeyong are sitting on the couch, entirely silent and still except for Taeyong’s fingers carding through the fur on Karen’s forehead in a repetitive motion. He can hear Jaemin in the kitchen. 

His eyes catch on Jeno again, for a long moment, before he says into the silence of the room: “I’m sorry.” 

They turn to him and he continues: “For not being here. I should have been here but—” He interrupts himself and closes his eyes. This shouldn’t be about him. “I’m sorry,” He says again. 

He hears how Taeyong takes a breath, braces himself for it, but it never comes because Jaemin steps back into the room then, heading straight for Donghyuck’s side. 

“We should leave,” He says. 

“We?” Donghyuck repeats. 

It’s his father who answers, instead of Jaemin: “If Jeno gets worse, Taeyong and Saerom are most capable to help him,” He explains. “And I’m staying here, because I don’t think I will be of any help.” 

“Dad—” Donghyuck starts, but he shakes his head. 

“I spent my whole life trying to find the clearing. I don’t think I am supposed to.” 

The way he says it reverberates within Donghyuck, shakes something loose that he’d believed to have already fallen to dust. His father isn’t bitter, his words speak of acceptance, of patience that has settled for eternity, and of something that Donghyuck has been silently striving for since he was nine. It’s something monumental, or it would have been, if it hadn’t been muted but every other feeling soaring in Donghyuck’s chest at that moment and reduced to a small echo between it all. 

He holds his father’s gaze for a moment, knows that when all of this is over there is a long conversation to be had. His eyes fall to Jeno again, and he knows that all of this will be over sooner than he’d like, one way or another. 

“Let’s go,” He breathes out in Jaemin’s direction, and they leave, without much fanfare, hurrying down the street and past living room windows alight with the glow of TV’s, past closed blinds and parked cars, the moonlight illuminating the pavement and the urgency of what they left behind in each of their steps. 

They halt, once they reach the edge of the woods. 

“Your grandma said that she never followed a direction,” Jaemin recalls. “Just the woods.” 

Despite everything, Donghyuck can’t stop himself from chuckling. “Like it would have killed her to be less cryptic.” 

Jaemin responds with a grim smile of his own. “Where would the fun be in that?” 

They stare at the treeline for a long moment, and the darkness stares back. Behind them, they faintly hear a car engine starting up, in front of them, leaves rustle, with nothing to say what caused them to. 

“You know,” Jaemin mumbles. “I’ve always dreamt of being a part of something magical. It was very different in my head.” 

Donghyuck knows about this, knows about the way Jaemin’s eyes would shine when his family told him about the gift and the clearing, of the longing that spoke from his words when he asked for more stories. It’s something that he never quite understood as they grew up, but it is familiar, and he clings to it in this moment of facing something that he understands even less. 

“What was it like?” He asks, taking a tentative step forward. They are running on borrowed time. 

Jaemin hums, follows him, and they step into the darkness as he talks: “Well, for starters, it was always in the daylight. There’d be sunlight filtering through the leaves and casting shapes into the air that were just that little bit off.” 

The moonlight barely breaks the thick canopies above them, and neither of them dares to take out their phones for light, so they can only rely on their instincts, inching forward. 

“You’d be there, of course,” Jaemin continues. 

“Of course,” Donghyuck echoes, his voice more breathless than joking. 

“I wouldn’t go on magical adventures without you,” Jaemin insists. “I don’t have a lot of other friends that would be up for that.” 

“I’m sure Jeno and Renjun would join you.” 

“I’ll make sure to ask them along on the next one then,” Jaemin gives back, but it’s more subdued and after a moment he adds: “They’ll be okay, right?” 

Donghyuck wishes he could give him a resounding yes as an answer. But the shadows that the faint moonlight casts are long and deep, and the pale grey bits of ground and bark it does illuminate remind him of Jeno back in his living room, dying, and the crisp air coming by in a breeze feels like it’s suffocating him. 

He wants to say something, anything, keep up the tentative banter they’d started just to keep their minds off things, but it takes a lot, and he’s too caught up in his thoughts. In the darkness, his foot catches on something, a rock maybe, or a branch. 

He doesn’t even anticipate the fall, it happens to quick. All he thinks is something resigned, something deeply rooted along the lines of _of course_ this would happen. And then the fall comes and it’s not much gentler and not much rougher than he expected and he hears Jaemin rustling through the branches behind him and then he opens his eyes and thinks _Oh._

“Hyuck, are you o— Holy shit.” 

Donghyuck looks back up at Jaemin for a second, thinking that maybe he is imagining, maybe the fall was worse than it felt and he is losing a lot of blood and hallucinating and Jaemin is horrified at the sight. 

But his best friend’s eyes are wide in wonder, not at him but at something in front of them, and his features are cast in an eerie light that is not moonlight but not quite something else. It’s what your dreams make you believe a night looks like, Donghyuck decides, and it feels a lot like a dream too. 

He gets to his feet slowly and turns towards the clearing he fell into. 

There’s everything you would think a clearing has, and then a little more, and a little less, fluidly fluctuating between the two as if the air is heating up, always making sure you can’t convince yourself that what you’re seeing is real. Donghyuck would have needed another hour to wrap his mind around it probably, but he doesn’t have that kind of time, and even the split moment he does take is cut short by a voice to his right. 

It seems a little too loud for the clearing, and yet like no other place could hold the sound and carry it. 

“About time!” 

A boy is stepping out of a tree. 

There is no hole in the bark, no hollow core or magic trick, even if Donghyuck’s eyes want him to believe there has to be. One moment there is a tree, a relatively small one, probably one that would carry rich fruit in the right season. The next moment there is a boy, and he can’t comprehend how, but Donghyuck knows he came out of the tree. 

“Holy shit,” Jaemin says again, but it’s barely above a breath. 

The boy from the tree doesn’t seem to mind as he strides towards them with purpose and starts gesticulating wildly. He’s not very tall, young looking, his hair is a shade of blond but a little off, a little mossy. 

“We’ve been waiting for you to show up _forever_ and you really put it off until the very last moment. Do you know how _frustrating_ it is, to just sit and wait and not be able to do _anything_?!” 

He reaches them and grasps Donghyuck’s hands tightly in his own. His skin is a little rough. “I’m so glad to finally meet you though,” He beams. “This is very exciting.” 

His grin diminishes as quickly as it came. “But there’s no time for this.” 

Not for the first time since this whole ordeal started, Donghyuck is glad he has Jaemin there, somehow able to not lose his mind, somehow able to speak and have it make sense. 

“You knew what was happening to Renjun?” He asks. 

The boy nods. “Of course.” 

Some of the wonder in Jaemin’s face had seeped away. “You didn’t do anything.” 

The boy’s face falls from serious to something akin to heartbroken. “We couldn’t.” 

There are a million questions that need to be asked, a million thoughts in Donghyuck’s head but it all grinds to a stop when something reverberates across the clearing. It’s not quite a voice, not quite a gust of wind, not quite a shiver on his skin when it hits and yet at the same time it is all of those things and much more. 

“Bring them here,” It says, spreads, vibrates. “Bring them to me, Chenle.” 

Donghyuck doesn’t have to turn and look to know who he’s about the face. He braces himself for it anyways, expecting it to feel like another fall, another dream-thing, another trick his eyes can’t quite catch, yet it’s nothing of the sort. 

There is bark and there is skin, leaves and hair and eyes as green as everything that is alive, as blue as the deepest water and as brown as the ground Donghyuck feels rooted too. Only he isn’t, he feels his feet carry him across the clearing lightly, following Chenle skipping along in front of him, feels his rapid heartbeat slowing down gradually and when he stands in front of them, something inside him shifts, something that had been off his whole life. Something he’d grown accustomed to when he turned nine. 

“Oh,” he says, but it’s not surprise, it’s understanding. 

“Donghyuck,” They say. There’s a lot in their voice, a lot of life, a lot of untold stories, a lot of stories Donghyuck has heard too much. A lot of love. “There you are.”

And all Donghyuck can say in that moment is: “Hi.” 

He doesn’t get the chance to backtrack, because the profound silence that should follow is cut short by Jaemin nearly stumbling into him and breathlessly exclaiming: “Oh my God, holy fuck.” 

Donghyuck turns to him for a second to make sure he’s steady, and can’t help but feel surprised when he turns back and they’re still there, still smiling. He doesn’t feel like he’s losing his mind at all, but he still can’t speak. Jaemin on the other hand is clearly losing his, yet says: “You’re-- Donghyuck, this-- Your grandmother, this is--” 

“It’s okay,” Chenle chirps up. “We all know what you mean, you don’t need to say it.” 

Jaemin is still floundering in his disbelief and excitement when Donghyuck finally finds his voice. 

“You look just like her drawings,” He says. 

They nod, smile turning fond. “She had a way with her brush. I used to tell her it was her magic, but she never believed me. Not unlike you, Donghyuck.” 

“Oh, I suck at art,” Donghyuck waves off, and it feels absurd. No human besides his grandmother had ever been to this place, the moonlight is flimmering with magic, Jeno is dying and everything is absurd. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Is all they reply. They get up then, standing to their full height and Donghyuck has to look up. “You see, all life comes from nature. Some strives farther from it, some stays close, but it all belongs to nature and all nature is magic. Humans’ magic is just trivial to them.” 

It reminds him of the words in his grandmothers sketchbook. All life comes from nothing, comes from everything, comes from you, and me, and them, and everyone and no one. He wonders if it’s something they told her back then. At the same time he wonders if they are actually right.

“Not all of it is trivial,” Donghyuck gives back. “Saerom’s isn’t. Taeyong’s isn’t.” 

“To you, it isn’t. Chenle here wouldn’t even bat an eye at it.” 

Chenle huffs at that, indignant. “I’m not a human.” 

“I know, little one. Just an example,” They chuckle, and there is a glint in their eyes, a glint that speaks of something more. Donghyuck understands everything his grandma did when she was seventeen right in that moment. Years of bitterness, evaporating into the same understanding that filled him when he first saw them. 

Love, he thinks, love is a kind of magic that would not ever seem trivial to him.

As if they can read his thoughts, the lines of their face turn more solemn. “He doesn’t have much time left,” They state. 

Donghyuck steps closer. “How can I help? What can I do?” 

“Oh, Blossom, you already did what you were supposed to do, what you were always meant to do.” 

The purpose, the predestination, the weight of their words and of their _always_ nearly goes over Donghyuck’s head when he exhales in a loud rush. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He demands. “Jeno and Renjun need help, I came all this way to find this place and now you’re telling me I can’t do more? There has to be--” 

He stops, when a sudden sharp realisation pierces through the thoughts. “I was meant to find the clearing.” He breathes out. “That’s why Dad couldn’t.” 

They nod, and open their mouth, maybe to say more, maybe to explain the workings of the universe to him, and it’s everything Donghyuck dreamed of when he was a child, but he holds up a hand to stop them. 

“We don’t have time for this right now. They need our help, there has to be something that you can do, you knew what we were here for. We need to get back to them.” 

This, for the first time since they stepped into the clearing, seems to be throwing them off. “Surely, you have questions.” They say. 

“I do. More than I could even begin to count, but they’re not important right now.” 

“You have to understand that you won’t come back here, Donghyuck, time and space doesn’t function on your terms--” 

“Well, I need it to,” Donghyuck interrupts. “I don’t care about an answer I’ve been waiting for my whole life being put off for the rest of it. I made a promise and you can help me keep it so please, help me.” 

They are silent for another long moment, then another smile spreads on their face. “That’s what I mean when I say trivial.” 

In some part of Donghyuck’s mind more questions start to stir and demand attention, but he ignores them with resolve. “You know what is going on. How can we help them?” 

He feels Jaemin tense next to him momentarily. The dream unfolding around them had distracted him from the reality they left behind when they stepped onto the clearing. Donghyuck has half a mind to put a grounding hand on his arm, but the thought comes to a stop, shrieking in his head, when they say: “You can’t.” 

The shrieking quiets down as soon as it started, Jaemin doesn’t. 

“What do you mean?” He says, taking a step forward. “We came all this way, you just said it’s Hyuck’s _destiny_ to find this place, Chenle said you’ve been waiting for us, and now you’re telling us we’re wasting our time when we could be with them right now?!”

It’s Chenle who answers. “Human,” He says, and he seems much older than his face would make one think in that moment. “You’re not listening.” 

“I am listening,” Jaemin gives back defiantly, “And all I’m hearing is that all of this is pointless and Renjun and Jeno are going to die.”

A rustling calls all of their attention back to them. “You can’t help them,” They repeat. “But this place can.” 

“So we just bring them back here?” Jaemin asks eagerly, for all means looking like he is ready to sprint back to Donghyuck’s house and carry their friends to the clearing by himself that very second. 

It’s Donghyuck who shakes his head and places a hand on his shoulder. “They said I wouldn’t be able to find the clearing again,” He reminds him, and feels Jaemin’s shoulders fall under his touch. 

“Well, what alternatives are there?” Jaemin asks, with much less vigor. 

Donghyuck eyes Chenle. “You have a body,” He states. 

Chenle nods, a proud gleam in his eyes that doesn’t seem like it belongs into this conversation. “I made it myself, pretty impressive, right? The best out of everyone here, but don’t tell them I said that.” 

“Is it connected to your tree?” Donghyuck follows up. 

Chenle sniffs. “What would be the point of that? I could just stay in my tree, would be much more comfortable too.” 

It doesn’t make perfect sense to Donghyuck, but he doesn’t need perfect right now, he just needs _something_ and an idea is forming in his head. 

“So Renjun needs his own body. He could part from Jeno and we would have more time to heal his tree.” He looks in between Chenle and his grandmother’s love. “How does he do it?” 

They shake their head nearly imperceptibly. “He can’t. He needs this place for it, he hasn’t been able to do it because he hasn’t been here.” 

Anguish makes its way up Donghyuck’s throat like bile. “But he cannot come to this place. We don’t have _time_ for you telling me everything we cannot do, just tell me what we have to do!”

Chenle lifts up a single finger. “They can’t come to the clearing, so you have to take the clearing to them,” He explains, as if it makes any sense.

Jaemin immediately drops to his knees, starting to scratch at the ground with his bare hands as he talks. “Does he need some of this soil to grow from or something?”

“Jaemin, stop,” Their voice rumbles over them gently. “This place is nothing physical you can transport. You’ll need to carry it with you--” A delicate root lifts from the ground in front of Jaemin, taps the center of his chest softly before lingering in the air in front of him. “In there.”

Before they can ask more questions, Chenle continues. “It’s like a sacrifice, sort of, or a transaction. You leave something here, you take something with you.”

“What do you mean, leave something?” Donghyuck asks, at the same time Jaemin says: “I’ll do it.” 

Donghyuck’s head snaps to look at him, still kneeling on the ground, the palms of his hands muddy brown where they rest on his thighs. “You don’t know what you’ll need to do, this could be--” He starts. 

Jaemin shakes his head. “I don’t care, if it will help them,” He says with resolve. 

Donghyuck wants to argue, but he realises that he can’t. It’s their only option, and he is not leaving with nothing. He still shakes his head. “I’ll do the sacrifice.” 

“Like hell you are--” Jaemin pipes up, but before they can get into arguing, the root moves again, up in between them to get their attention. 

“Destiny,” They start slowly, “Is like life. It comes from everyone, from everything, and each living thing has theirs. You fulfilled yours, Donghyuck. Now it’s time for Jaemin to fulfill his.” 

And that is how it happens. Donghyuck takes a step back when Chenle motions for him to. The root floating in the air goes back to where it tapped onto Jaemin’s chest and stays there. Something shifts. Jaemin closes his eyes with a soft “Oh.” 

“You will be our eyes,” They vibrate in the air. “You will be our hands.” 

Tendrils of grass, of vines, of roots, some of them thin as hair, start to wrap around Jaemin’s legs and arms. “You will help our brother, you will fulfill your destiny.” 

The breath Donghyuck is holding in is threatening to catch fire in his lungs and is about to eat him whole, just when it all stops. 

It’s like a switch flipped, like a sudden breeze blowing away a thin layer of dust. It fans over Donghyuck’s face softly, just like their voice whispering _”Thank you, Blossom.”_. There are no tendrils around Jaemin. When he looks to his left, Chenle is gone, the tree where he saw them is just bark and leaves. The dream is over. 

For a few moments both of them blink into the night, before Donghyuck takes the few steps over and holds a hand out to Jaemin. “Are you okay?” He asks, as he pulls him up. 

“I...I don’t feel any different.” Jaemin gives back, although a little dazed. “We didn’t just imagine all of that, right?” 

“No,” Donghyuck says immediately. The trees around them rustle as if in agreement. 

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Jaemin asks, looking at the dirty palms of his hands before he catches Donghyuck’s eyes again, with a small smile. “I only just got Renjun, I’m not letting go of him so quickly.” 

Donghyuck wants to quirk an eyebrow at that, wants to ask teasing questions, make Jaemin blush if possible. If they were normal teenagers, if magic wasn’t real, if Jaemin didn’t carry a primal bit of it within him, maybe he would have. All that is left now is trudge alongside Jaemin out of the forest.

At the treeline, they turn back for a second. “This is exactly how I thought our magical adventure would go,” Jaemin announces. 

Then they start running down the street, and Donghyuck thinks that the yellow light of the streetlamps looks a lot like hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI ITS BEEN A WHILE. sorry for that, i promise i will finish this fic!!!! thank you for reading and as always ifyou have any questions, my cc is fullstar!! (only linking that for now bc im thinking of deactivating my writing twt and just using my main again hehe)

**Author's Note:**

> if you have any questions, opinions, etc, make sure to check out my [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/lilaliacs) or my [cc](http://www.curiouscat.me/fullstar) !!


End file.
